


Penny Dutch; In Too Deep

by Corporal_Soletrain



Series: Gods and Worse [1]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: 1920s, Conditioning, Corruption, F/F, F/M, Flappers, Hypnotism, Light Bondage, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Oral Sex, Prohibition, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:28:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corporal_Soletrain/pseuds/Corporal_Soletrain
Summary: Penny Dutch arrives in Prohibition-Era Minneapolis hunting for her father's killer; the ancient vampire Mot. Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately for her, Mot remembers her father and decides to play a game rather than fight a war.
Series: Gods and Worse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816159
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. City of Flour and Sawdust

**Author's Note:**

> This is a single story of a set, likely the only one to contain such explicitly sexual themes. Most of the set are focused on horror and modern fantasy. This was originally written to explain to myself the process of 'renfielding' but the work that started out as essentially notes for myself has spiraled into a full blown story on its own.

The jazz music flittered around Penny like a swarm of bats, and she regarded it with the same revulsion. The sinful strains might be tempting to the painted harlots in this city of heathens, but they were grating to her ears. She endured, however, in the name of her mission. She was there for Mot.

The ancient, evil thing was here, she was sure of it. In her handbag, she had very little; some cash, a change of clothes, a handful of jazz press papers from around Minnesota, several vials, and her father’s Apache revolver. Of the first, she had very little, perhaps enough for a hotel for the night and a few meals, and of the latter, she had only the three cartridges currently loaded in it. Still, she felt as close to the end of her crusade as she had ever been.

She started out by asking the locals for directions but found them unaccommodating and rude. As a consequence, the sun was going down as she found herself staring at a flophouse on the outskirts of the city, sandwiched between a butcher’s shop and a tenement house.

Desperate to avoid the night, Penny rushed to the door and gripped the rusty knob. Finding it locked, she resisted the temptation to swear or look over her shoulder. Instead, the visitor pounded on the panels, hard enough that the paint peeled off on her palms. She wasn’t ready, wasn’t prepared for the night yet.

After nearly a minute of pounding, the door was unlocked, and she found herself facing down the barrel of an antique shotgun. As the dim light flooded from inside, she felt her fear ebbing away, and she stood straighter. “Ma’am, I require boarding if you please. I am new in town, and I have money to pay for food and shelter. I do not appreciate that weapon in my face, please remove it.”

At her aplomb, the elderly proprietor lowered her firearm, though it remained directed at Penny’s skirt-covered knees. “Two dollars.”

“For this place?!” Penny started, then composed herself again. “Alright, two dollars. For room and board.”

After a few seconds, and then a furtive glance behind Penny into the night, the old woman nodded and moved aside. Penny lifted her handbag and entered the ramshackle building. Once she was safely inside, she saw them: two boys in their early teens, across the street. Most people wouldn’t give them a second glance, just two urchins in a city of teeming sin. Most would assume that their parents were probably drowning in a speakeasy or coughing themselves to death in a tenement. Most would have thought the soul-sucking voids beneath their brows was simply a trick of light and shadow. Penny knew better; Penny knew when she was looking at the Moroi.

The door closed, and Penny relaxed. “My name is Penny. I am sorry about the hour.”

“It’s alright, miss. I’m sorry about the gun, but I been hearin’ stories about places like mine. They let the wrong guest in at sundown and then the sickness comes. They’re sayin’ it’s not what the doctors think, that it’s a curse.” She accepted the coins proffered and stuffed them in the pocket of her grimy apron. As she led her guest down the narrow hall, she continued, “I figured it was the Germans. Or the Turks. Can’t win a war right, so they got to do their folk magic. Poison the water, lay their curses. You ain’t one of those German folk, are you?” The suspicious gleam in her beady eyes returned as she looked at her unassuming guest.

“No,” Penny lied, “My grandfather was French.” She’d had to repeat this lie enough times since becoming an adult that the little sin barely bothered her. The anti-German sentiment was fading but still remained high, and she had spent more than one night on the street since embarking on her crusade.

“Good,” the old woman nodded. “I don’t board Germans if I can help it. Filthy, thuggish brutes with pig faces and evil minds.” The rant continued all the way to Penny’s rented door. Through it all, she politely nodded but otherwise remained noncommittal. “Well, this is your place, until your money runs out. Dinner’s in ten minutes, soup. It’s usually soup. Breakfast is at sunrise. If you’re late, I might leave a pot out until I get around to washing it. That’s usually soup, too. Any questions?”

The door opened to reveal a five-by-six foot closet with no window and a ratty chaise lounge. A small table scarcely more substantial than a stool was wedged between the futon and the wall. “Is there a blanket?”

“Hum? Oh, sure, sure. Linen’s at the end of the hall. I have to get back to the soup.”

Penny simply nodded and watched the old woman hustle away. She waited until her host had turned the corner and then entered her room. Despite the apparent neglect, the latch and hinges were both in near perfect condition and made very little noise. Penny could hear the sounds of life through the walls; families impoverished by mistake or geneology living, loving, arguing, and praying. The feeling of humanity warmed Penny a bit, and she set about placing her belongings from her bag for storage. Her change of clothes was neatly folded and placed under the futon, the jazz papers were stuffed into the shallow drawer for quick reference, and the vials were placed on top of the little table. She unbuttoned her coat and drew out her most valuable possession: a small gold locket bearing the face of her father. She hung the opened pendant around the tallest vial.

“Father,” she whispered, addressing the bauble, “I’m so close, but I have nothing. This crusade has cost me so much, I may have to live in this city for a time to build up my preparation again. We must be patient.”

With that, Penny said a quick prayer and rebuttoned her coat to join the other tenants for dinner. The potato soup was filling enough, and Penny had only one more question for her landlady. “Is there a bath?”

“Bath’s outside, miss.” At Penny’s pale, horrified stare, the old woman scoffed. “There’s a curtain to keep out prying eyes. This house has stood since eighteen-ten, I can’t afford to pipe the place. Unless you care to make a donation? Eh? Didn’t think so.”

Penny wasn’t sure if bathing outside made her more afraid of leering strangers or the horrors of the night. She never missed a bath if she could help it, but this was ridiculous. After finishing her one allotted bowl of soup, she returned to her room and packed for bathing.

The “bath” was half of a large barrel lined with clay, with a moth-eaten cloth sheet hung from a circular wire to protect modesty. The bath was isolated enough, being behind the building and thus away from casual viewing by road. Still, there was no sheltering fence to prevent less accidental intrusions. The hand pump was well used but in good working order, and she managed to fill the tub quickly. With rapid, hasty movements, she stripped down and jumped into the chilly water. Usually, she’d have allowed herself to relax and enjoy the weightless and cleansing feeling of the water. This time, however, she clutched her firearm with white knuckles and listened for any hint of footsteps. When none came, she carefully and quietly scrubbed her body with her free hand, finally allowing her head under the water for an instant before breaching the surface. Even this momentary interruption of her senses was enough to cause her heart to race by the time air touched her nose again. She raised her pistol to fend off a possible attack that never came. It took several breaths into the still night to calm herself back down.

Clean enough to satisfy herself, she slipped out of the tub and toed open the drain. Still wet, she hurriedly dressed in her dirty clothes to preserve her modesty while she returned to her room. She used the day’s clothes to dry herself and her hair, then slipped under the scratchy old blanket to fall into a fitful sleep.


	2. The Eyes of Eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny has her first encounter with Mot

The next morning, Penny sought work. Being literate and bilingual should have been an asset, but unfortunately, her second language was that of her father. People simply weren’t interested enough in talking to Germans at this juncture to bother with paying translators. Instead, she offered her services to a number of penny drug stores and factories only to be rebuffed at every turn. The Eighteenth Amendment had hit the economy of St. Louis hard. Nobody was hiring, everywhere was slowly bleeding staff, and the degradation of the city was starting to show.

She gave up after almost twelve hungry hours, and trudged toward home preparing to spend her last two dollars for one more night. Penny paused at a street corner, scowling at a group of tittering girls sporting the increasingly popular ‘flapper’ style. They flaunted short-cropped curls, heavy makeup, and skirts high enough to reveal rouged knees.

“You know,” a deep voice resonated behind her, making her jerk spasmodically. “Twenty years ago, those heels of yours would have been considered immodest.”

She wheeled on the speaker, blistering rage, causing a hot flush on her cheeks. “I beg your pardon?” she demanded, eyes flashing.

“I saw you judging those pretty little things over there,” he chuckled, inclining his head respectfully. “I was just cautioning you not to be too harsh in your opinions; times change, and there will come a time when modesty rules the day again.”

She stared at him. He was not ugly, nor was he handsome per se. He had prominent cheekbones, and his complexion was too sallow to be strictly healthy. His smile was crooked, but charmingly so, and his entire countenance bespoke supreme confidence. He wore a suit far too expensive for the times, and he leaned lightly on a silver-handled cane stylized to look like a scythe. A handmade hat of impeccable style concealed his hairline. Still, a glance could see a high forehead over his thick eyebrows. She couldn’t tell if he was thirty or sixty, and he seemed to shift between age and youth dependent on the slightest tricks of the light. “I didn’t get your name,” she noted, cautiously. Something was screaming in her mind, something important that she was missing.

“I didn’t give it,” he smirked. “Yet, I will now. I’m Mortimer. Mortimer Mot.”

Penny hoped that her flush of anger had receded enough to conceal the fact that the color drained out of her face. “Mot? Mor... Mot? Oh. Uh, I’m...” she panicked. She didn’t want to give the monster her real name. The seconds stretched on as her stricken mind fought desperately for purchase on any title. That’s when she finally saw what she’d been missing. Her mind had been forced to avoid the reality, but now it was confronting her wholly. Mortimer’s eyes were black voids that devoured all light. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed that.

Looking at it, though, they weren’t voids. Faded, distant in that infinite abyss were swirling stars and galaxies barely visible to the naked eye. Focusing on them, she could bring them into focus, and suddenly they were apparent. Glacially spinning through the blackness, colliding, expiring, marching towards entropy and inevitable heat death. She watched as these stars and planets smashed each other into dust, burned through their fuel and winked out one by one until finally there was only one guttering light like a candle. Before her eyes, it winked out and she pitched backwards completely losing her balance to vertigo.

Instead of the hard stone, she landed on her own rented futon. She scrambled to her feet and into the hallway, looking for Mot. Penny was utterly alone. A glance at the window on the north end of the hall revealed that it was deep into the night, a fact confirmed by the lack of noise other than the occasional snore from the other residents. Her face felt strange, so she stumbled to the full length mirror at the south end of the hall, the only mirror in the building as far as she knew. She was shocked at what she saw. She was mostly the same as when she went out, with one glaring exception. She was wearing immodest makeup, the same style as those flapper harlots she had been scowling at when she met Mortimer.

‘It looks pretty,’ she thought, ‘Maybe I’ll start wearing this.’ She was startled by the thought. It was in her voice, but there was a strange tone to it, almost an echo. A deep, chesty sound, like Mot’s voice. She struggled with it for a bit and then thought back to her job search. Perhaps if the shop owners had been more interested in her, they would have been more interested in hiring her.

As she thought about whether it would be worth spending her precious few dollars on some cheap makeup, her hand drifted seemingly on its own to her handbag. She realized that it was nowhere near as empty as it had been before. Opening it up, she found to her shock that it held a full set of Max Factor makeup, a roll of bills totaling one hundred dollars, and a note written in her own hand.

_Work accepted. Starts at 8 pm. Wear makeup. It’s good to wear makeup._

Confused, Penny put the note back in her bag and mentally prepared herself for another white-knuckled, cold bath. What had happened to her? Did she really want to know? She spared one last look at herself in the mirror, checking herself over for bite marks. Finding none, she tried to force the fear out of her mind.


	3. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny begins to work... and plan.

The next morning, she rose and dressed. She felt a little more comfortable with the necessity of backyard hygiene, so she was not embarrassed to find herself brushing her teeth next to a few of her neighbors. She even politely smiled at their attempts at conversation. When Penny was finished, she ate her soup with the others and struggled with herself. If she had work as the note suggested, she would be free for most of the day. If not, then what? She returned to her room to think it over.

Penny took out the note again, this time turning it over in her hand. To her astonishment, Penny realized that she had not noticed an address on the back. Schultz Road in Oakland, a suburb of St. Louis, was in a residential area. What possible work could she have found there? Perhaps she was to be a maid? Was it a trap? Beneath the address she had scrawled the words, _MASTER WILL SEND A CAR._

She felt panic and confusion run through her and looked at it again, relieved to see that the word was _MORTIMER._ "So that's what the job is," she noted to her father's portrait. "It's a trap to lure me in, or some kind of game he's playing. I think he won a battle last night, but he's arrogant. I'll play along for now, and then I'll finish this." She had so much confidence in her voice, but there was doubt in her mind. The note on the card, her lost hours, they were worrying. In the bath, she had checked herself more thoroughly, and she was in no way despoiled or mistreated. He couldn't possibly have suspected her true motives, or he would have killed her when she was under his power. Perhaps he was just a casual predator, and she had gotten unlucky.

She made her preparations to leave, pausing by the mirror to put on her makeup. To her astonishment, she was able to expertly apply it despite the fact that she'd always been against painting herself like a harlot and thus had almost no practice. The face looking back at her was much more in line with a modern girl of the 1920s, not the puritan reserved thing from Nowhere, Pennsylvania born to a German immigrant and his liberated Amish bride. Penny stood straighter and smiled experimentally. Making a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat, she turned to leave.

The old landlady scowled at her as she left. "I see this city did a number on you already. Only two days, and you're a painted whore."

Penny shrugged bashfully. "It's good to wear makeup," she answered mechanically and then started a bit. "I mean," she stammered, struggling, "I have to find a job, and men will hire a woman more easily if she's painted up."

The old lady still obviously disapproved, but was apparently satisfied. When she turned her attention back to her newspaper, Penny took the opportunity and left.

After a few quick inquiries, she located the public library. She spent a few hours researching the various owners of the properties on the street in question, and then took a break for lunch around noon.

As she struck out, the street vendors were in full swing. They desperately hawked their greasy mystery food as if it was ambrosia from Olympus. None of it looked particularly appealing until she was hit with a smell from a side street. Out of the way, quietly selling to customers who obviously knew the vendor was a sausage kiosk. Penny happily ordered a sausage served on a wooden skewer and found a bench on which to eat it. When she was done, she looked at the library roof, just visible past a row of buildings from her vantage point. Penny couldn't bring herself to read anymore that day, her mind was shot, and the huntress hadn't found anything particularly interesting or helpful in the hours of research.

She thought about the money in her handbag. She decided to see what she might spend it on. Her first stop was an easy one, and she bought a box of 9 x 19-millimeter parabellum rounds for her revolver. Next, she hunted down a clothing store and bought up several long-skirted dresses like the ones she had brought to town. Changing in the public restroom was a necessary evil, as she then dropped off her dirty clothing at a laundry. Finally, she stopped for some essential supplies. When all of her running was through, she found just enough time to rush home before the sun went down. Estimating that she still had a few hours, she decided to freshen up before going to this new job and took an early bath.

She was preoccupied this time and found much more enjoyment in the tub. Though the water was cold, it was refreshing, and she could feel the day's grime rinse off of her. She was brought back to a fully alert state by a soft rustling sound.

"Hello?" she called out, reaching behind her, where she had hung her revolver. To her relief, it was still there, and she unfolded it with a series of quick clicks. "Who's there?"

The night went silent. The quiet was so pervasive that she felt it, even the normal street sounds couldn't get through. A silhouette appeared on the curtain, tall and thin. A wide-brimmed hat sat on the head, but no other details could be made out other than the generic human shape. She raised her pistol and rotated the barrels, clicking a loaded chamber into place. The silence became a pressure on her skin, and she could feel it all the way into her skull. Terror thundered through her on her pulse, and her hand shook. Just before she pulled the trigger, the figure was gone, and normal sound returned. Cautiously, she climbed out of the tub and peeked between a gap in the curtain, finding herself once again alone.

She shivered in the night air, cold water dripping off of her as she looked around. Keeping her defenses up, she awkwardly dried and dressed. As she turned to the door, the wind whipped through, and she felt the hem of the skirt brush against her knees. She was shocked to see that her clothing had either been replaced or altered. The skirt was fully eight inches shorter than it had been when she bought it, and her blouse was trimmed to be much more form-fitting. Her heels had even been replaced. She pushed her way through to her room and lifted her new clothes, comparing them. All of them had been similarly altered.

Penny sat down slowly. She had bought them this way. She had to have. No demonic tailor had crept in just to vandalize her clothing. The woman rushed to find her landlady. When she discovered her cleaning the kitchen, she asked if she had come in wearing her clothes like this.

"Yeah, I just figgered it was for 'work,'" the old lady's sneer intensified on the last word. "You been here not half a week, and this city's already eating you alive."

"No, it's... Nothing will eat me here, I assure you," Penny insisted, turning on her heel and stalking out of the room. A harsh knock at the door drew her up short. If it wasn't yet eight, it was certainly getting close. She rushed to touch up her makeup and then cut off the landlady on her way to the door. "Probably for me."

She opened the door, only to find no-one standing on the short porch. An expensive-looking car sat running by the curb, however, and the driver waited patiently in his seat. Steeling herself, she took the long way to the sidewalk so that she could make more observations before getting into the car. It was shiny, new, and black. The engine was quieter than she'd experienced before, hinting at careful engineering. A plate on the back read D D3D TRVL and beneath that was painted the word FAST in red lettering.

When Penny was satisfied that she had nothing left to learn, she opened the passenger side door and slid into the back seat. The driver was a thick man that looked more like a dockworker than his tailored suit would suggest. He did not greet her and barely acknowledged her before driving off at an immediately breakneck pace.

The drive was brutal, and Penny feared for her life several times. The driver seemingly had no concern for traffic laws or the safety of pedestrians as he tore through the street, silent and implacable in his station.

The technique paid off, however, and they made the trip in less than half an hour without significant incident. Deposited on the street corner, Penny instinctively thanked the driver, who reacted to her for the first time. He looked at her with a frown, sorrow, or guilt breaking through his facade. He drove away, and Penny found herself alone.

She stood next to the street on a manicured lawn. There was an old and abandoned house in front of her, with newer and more vibrant homes on all sides. Penny rechecked her address and confirmed that she was indeed in the right place. With nothing else to do, she walked towards the building as confidently as she could. As Penny raised her knuckles to knock on the door, it swung inward. It revealed a dilapidated residential home that had once housed a well-to-do family. "Hello?" she asked the darkness. When she got no answer, she huffed.

A nagging feeling tugged at the back of her mind. Chiding herself as she focused on the thought, she realized that she should be going to the cellar. Why hadn't she thought of that first?

She closed the door politely and walked back to the yard. She rounded the corner on the right side of the building to see what she knew would be there: the storm cellar. She walked up to it and kicked three times, paused, and kicked once more. The signal was accepted, and the door was opened by another burly man. This one was much poorer in dress than the driver had been, but was no less a slab of meat. He looked Penny up and down and stabbed a stubby thumb behind him. Taking this as a signal, Penny skirted around the man and walked down the stairs.

She laughed bitterly as she pushed her way through a swinging door and found herself in a speakeasy. Of course she would wind up in this sinful dive, and of course a vampire like Mot would be found in one. With nothing else to do, she approached the bartender and shouted over the vulgar jazz horns that she was looking for Mot.

The bartender nodded. "You must be the new girl," he noted, looking at her.

"I guess I am," she shrugged. "It's all pretty confusing."

"It usually is," he chuckled, and she realized that she didn't have any trouble hearing him even over the music. While she was attempting to accept that, he continued, "Mortimer's going onstage in a few minutes, when he comes off you can get to him behind that door. Leads backstage."

"Alright," she nodded, her hand slipping into her bag. The cold comfort of her revolver calmed her nerves, and she took in the room.

Men and women sat around every table, talking excitedly and breaking into laughter at regular intervals. A lively jazz band played for all that they were worth, each member taking a break from their instrument to belt out a bawdy verse before giving up the spotlight to the next bandmate. The effect was chaotic and exciting, quite unlike the more orderly and planned music that Penny was used to. A dozen or so young men and women flailed wildly on the dance floor, struggling to keep up with the tempo. The men were caked in sweat, and the women's faces showed trailing makeup streaking down to stain their shoulders and collars. Drunk as they were, they were clearly enjoying themselves.

True to the bartender's word, the band took a break, and Mortimer Mot maneuvered himself onto the stage. His baritone voice boomed out over the crowd, "Bims!" he paused for the women in attendance to cheer. "Beaus!" again he broke, this time for the men to attempt to out-howl the women. "Even the bulls!" he pointed at a couple of clean-cut men who pulled their badges from their pockets and raised them high to the cheers of the crowd even louder than the two previous rounds. "Welcome to the Underground Slab! Thousands of souls passed through this morgue in its heyday, and this is where they stored the bones of the Indians they dug up to make St. Louis! This is the hauntedest speakeasy you've ever whoopeed in!" His use of the modern slang felt forced, evident to anyone sober that it was an act. Luckily for him, that included only Penny and perhaps the bartender.

The crowd was eating it up. The lights dimmed, and mysterious lights cast ominous shadows over the walls. "So, we've got hooch!" More cheers. Penny wondered how innocent people on the street couldn't hear this racket. "We've got giggle water!" More cheers. "We've got SPIRITS!" he shouted the last one, and the ominous shadows began to move and writhe, humanoid shapes rushing over the walls and seemingly even between guests. With a flourish, Mortimer threw something between his own feet, and black smoke enveloped him. When it cleared, he was gone, and the crowd cheered. Without letting up on the spooky light show, the band returned to their spots and resumed playing.

Penny rolled her eyes and pushed her way to the door. One of the men who had been identified as 'bulls' earlier goosed her on the way past, and she wheeled on him. "How dare you! You're an officer of the law! It's your sworn duty to shut this place down!"

"Didn't know Mort hired bluenoses off the street. Relax, he's up on his taxes. Nobody's shutting this place down."

Something about his words gave Penny pause. "What makes you think I work here?"

He laughed at her, then. "Uh, the red uniform kind of gives it away."

She huffed at him, looking down at her gray and brown dress. "Red? I would never wear such a brazen color!"

"Alright, relax. We're just here to have a good time."

She growled wordlessly at him in a burst of frustration and nearly ran to the backstage door. Bursting through it, she saw a small co-ed dressing room for the performers. The cubby where the band would take breaks was empty of everything but small in-between-sets snacks and drinks. Next to them and against the wall was a line of vanities for a gaggle of gaudily dressed dancers that were currently touching up their makeup and costumes. Penny blushed and averted her eyes, looking at shoe-level to find Mortimer.

She laid eyes on his wingtips near the band's area and tromped with determination over to him. She started to raise her eyes as he turned around but remembered what happened last time she met his gaze, so she remained focused on his footwear. "Ah, good, you're only a little late," Penny heard Mortimer chuckle.

"What am I doing here?" she demanded.

"You mean you don't want to be hired as a waitress?" his tone was mocking, smug. "That red dress of yours had me fooled."

"I'm not we-" she gasped. She noticed now, the dress she had bought _was_ red. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"How did you turn my dress red?"

"I didn't," he replied. "You bought a dress in a brazen color, with a skirt that shows off your knees. It just happens to be the same that my waitresses wear."

Penny sputtered. "What makes you think I'm actually going to work for you!? You're twisting the world, toying with me..."

"No, I'm twisting your _mind_ and toying with you. I think you and I agree that the world is quite twisted enough. As for why you're going to work for me, it's because your name is Penny Dutch, daughter of Walter Dutch formerly known as Walter Eichhörnchen. You want revenge on my for killing your father, and you think you can get it by working here and waiting for your moment. Does that sound right?"

Penny raised her gaze to around his belt level, resisting the urge to glare at him. She was no longer confident that her plan to come here and destroy him was entirely her own. She should run away, come back at some point in the future, and try again. He was right there, though. It would be so easy.

"I said, 'Does that sound right?' Answer the question."

"Yes," she hissed.

"Good. I propose a wager, then. I liked your father, he had grit. I was annoyed that I had to kill him, but he interrupted a pivotal part of my plans that day and I had to get back on track. I have nothing going right now, so I'll employ you here and keep you close. You'll work for me from eight to three. I'll even offer a very generous wage, thirty cents an hour. Take that time and your days, go research how to kill me. Gather up the supplies, if you can find any allies hire or recruit them. Then, when you think I'm at my weakest, you strike."

Penny took a step back and stopped her gaze at his chin. Her surprise had almost cost her, she was sure. "What's in it for you?" she demanded.

"You are." His smirk turned into a full grin. "I liked your father, it would be interesting to get to know you. You may even be useful to me."

"You can't turn me into one of your abominations..."

"My dear, I would never do such a thing unless you _begged_ me to." His emphasis on the word seemed to imply that it was possible that such a thing would come to pass.

"If I refuse?"

"You walk out the door, my man gives you a ride home, and you leave town in the morning, or I have my children kill you brutally and painfully. Do we have a deal?"

Penny gritted her teeth. Giving up on her crusade now was a real temptation. She felt out of her depth, unprepared. On the other hand, he was offering her the time to get prepared, and thirty cents an hour was certainly enough money to build up an arsenal for the final attack. She decided to play his game, after all. "Yes, we have a deal."

"Good. I trust you know how to wait tables?"

"Yes."

"Then get to it. Do try to enjoy the show, good girls smile."

She glared at his chin and turned back to the entrance. She muttered spiteful words under her breath with enough venom that her mother would have been scandalized. She strode up to the table with the plainclothes officers first, intending to spit in their drink when they ordered it.

She was gobsmacked when the big bull grinned at her. "He sure set you straight. You got a beautiful smile."


	4. The Belle of Troy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny continues on her plan, and makes a friend.

When she slipped into the house and crept to her room, Penny had to refrain from groaning. Her feet hurt from working, and her face hurt from smiling. She found a silk nightgown laid out on her bed. She didn't know if she had bought it when she purchased her apparently red uniforms or had been delivered by Mortimer's men. She didn't really care, the thought of putting the cigarette-reeking skirt just to go from the tub to her bed made her cringe. It was still blessedly dark when she entered the back lawn.

Stripping off the sweaty, alcohol-soaked clothes, she bundled them up neatly. She then searched her handbag for some lard soap but was shocked to find that they'd been replaced by high-end, perfumed body scrubs. She dropped to her knees on the ground and sobbed. Had it been slipped into her bag when she wasn't looking? Had she bought it at his instruction thinking it was lard soap? What was real? What was she supposed to do? Tears rolled down her face, running her mascara. She scrubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand and proceeded to bustle around, filling the tub for another bath.

When she was done, she slipped into the bath. Without much choice in the matter, she lathered with the expensive soap and tried not to smile at the luxurious smell. To her annoyance and no small amount of terror, she failed.

When she was done, Penny slipped from the tub and dried off. She finished by donning the nightgown and hurrying into her room.

That night, she dreamed of victory. She imagined that she gathered men to her banner, all of the God-fearing men of the church, and the full force of the uniformed police. Following her lead, they stormed the speakeasy and crushed all resistance. Mortimer begged for his pathetic life before she drove a wooden stake through his chest.

When she woke, she changed into her red dress and peered at the hem. She was confident that she now saw the dress as it really was. It was a simple scarlet sundress with an unassuming black peplum and flounces cleverly sewn into the skirt to exaggerate any movement and draw the eye to the leg. The blouse was more form-fitting than she had initially thought as well, taken in at the waistline and stretched tight over her bosom. She felt almost naked wearing it as if she were on display. Unfortunately, it was all she had until she picked up her laundry.

She didn't think about stopping by the hallway mirror on her way out, she simply did it as part of her routine and left.

Her destination was once again the library. This time, she wanted to research vampires. Her father had told her how to slay vampires, of course. He told her to strike at the heart and burn whatever remains. He had said to her that they were weak against silver and garlic. She didn't know how any of that could help her strike the beast in his lair, however, and it certainly wasn't a plan.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that the library maintained a decent collection of older texts. She pored over them with enough intensity to make the librarians nervous. Penny deflected questions about her interest in dark history by claiming that she was simply an amateur poet looking to emulate Edgar Allen Poe. This satisfied, but they still watched her in wary fascination. She learned several things.

Mot had changed his name little over the centuries, and he was far older than she had thought. She found references to him sprinkled lightly over many periods, and of his black-eyed 'children' she found references even wider. Mot was also mentioned in recovered tablets from as far back as the Bronze Age, which made her blood freeze over. Such an ancient creature must inevitably have accumulated fabulous wealth and power and faced down many hunters such as herself. It was little wonder that her father had been so outclassed. This brought up the question in her mind; what on Earth was he doing running a small dime speakeasy on the outskirts of St. Louis?

She struck gold shortly before she was to give up and head home. Mot had been soundly defeated only once that she could find. In Anatolia, under the name Motenien, he had nearly been struck down by a hajduk who had flung myrrh into the vampire's face. The unfortunate outlaw succumbed to his wounds before he could capitalize on his desperate attack. Still, the event preceded nearly one hundred years of missing time for the creature. Hope surged through her; Mot could be defeated, and if he had such a weakness, he could surely be killed.

Excited, she looked for a catalog to order myrrh but could not find it among the spices or drugs. She continued her search until she was nearly out of time and had to rush home to prepare for work. The huntress pushed through the door to the flophouse without knocking and rushed to the mirror. She daubed perfume on and did her makeup, pausing halfway through. She was used to the idea that she didn't remember buying the things Mot wanted her to buy, but she had pulled this out of her purse. It definitely hadn't been there. Were agents of the vampire tailing her after all?

She finished her makeup in a more sour mood than she'd started and exited the building just as the car pulled up to the curb. Penny didn't say anything to the driver as she threw herself into the back seat.

He started on his needlessly reckless path to her place of employment. "Find the perfume?"

She gaped at the back of his head.

"I didn't put it there, don't blame me. I can smell it on you, though. It's a blend of fragrant cane and cassia bark, his favorite. You may as well get used to it, you'll be wearing it as long as he wants you to."

"Today is the last day I'll wear it. I was just... curious."

"Whatever you say, lady."

The rest of the ride was conducted in sullen silence. When they arrived, Penny slammed the door with all of her might and tromped to the cellar. The bouncer grinned toothily at her and let her through. She nodded at the bartender and took up her tray.

"Aren't you going to talk to the boss?" the bartender asked in his peculiarly penetrating voice.

"No," Penny responded, with finality.

"He likes it when the girls talk to him before work."

"I don't care what he likes, I am starting work, now."

"Your funeral," the bartender noted and turned to take an order.

Penny turned to start her rounds of the tables. The same bulls sat around the same table, and she immediately got the impression that these officers were loyal regulars. She thought back to her dream and realized that the police were not likely to assist her. They would be no help. She felt the loathsome smile touch her lips as she bent over the table to be heard over the music. "What can I get you, gentlemen?"

"Whiskey!" the nearest practically sang. His companions all grunted in assent. Penny nodded and returned to the bartender. Obtaining five whiskeys, she returned to the table and set down the tray to dole out the beverages. Penny jerked upright as she felt calloused fingers brush the back of her thigh. Her indignant expression caused the table to erupt in raucous laughter, and she barely resisted the urge to fling the drinks in the crooked cop's face.

The bartender motioned for her to sit on a stool, and she complied. Penny was just grateful to delay the next interaction with patrons. She didn't see him pour it, but the bartender produced a glass of ice water and set it in front of her. Nodding her thanks, she took a gulp of it and sputtered at the burning sensation in her mouth and throat. Looking at him as if she'd been poisoned, Penny demanded, "What's in this?"

The bartender looked surprised for the first time since she had met him. "First drink?"

"This is alcohol?"

"It's vodka. I just thought it would relax you, make you more comfortable."

"Alcohol is a sin!" she insisted, still shocked. A tingling warmth was spreading from her stomach, and she tried to push away the pleasantness of the sensation.

"' _Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all._ ' That's in the Bible, you know." Mot had slid onto the stool next to her, but she hadn't noticed.

"Don't quote the scriptures to me, monster!"

"I..." he started, leaning close with his crooked grin, "Will do as I please." He took a deep breath, the first time she'd ever noticed him breathing in fact, and leaned away. "You will, too. You didn't come to see me before you started."

She hesitated. She wanted to tell him off, but the words wouldn't form on her tongue for some reason. Worse, she felt an actual flash of shame that she had to force down hard enough to cause nausea. "I didn't," she stated flatly.

"You will from now on," he responded with certainty. "Finish your drink."

"I can't," she started, growing desperate. "It's a sin."

"Even your savior drank, kitten."

She flushed, hearing the pet name, and she tried to force herself to be angry. Whatever compulsion, he had given her still stuck, however, and her scowl twisted into a sweet smile. As soon as the smile reached its peak, a rush of joy soared through her, and this too Penny suppressed as hard as she could. "That was wine, not this rotten potato juice!"

"You have no interest in alcohol, but you know what it's made from. Interesting." Mortimer chuckled, making no attempt to hide the pearly white fangs in his mouth. "Farley, pour the woman a Tokay. The Aszú, I think." He turned back to her, "Normally, I'd suggest having this wine after dinner, but I think you'll appreciate it even on an empty stomach." He stopped the bartender and slid both the empty glass and the bottle of wine towards himself. "This is special. The grapes are grown not far from my birthplace. You simply must have a glass."

"I-" she looked between him and the bartender, helplessly. This man – this _monster_ , seemed so strangely earnest that she felt obligated to share this with him. She deflated, and looked out over the ecstatic crowd. "Alright, pour me a glass."

Grinning, Mot started to twist in the corkscrew but paused. "Still, remember that verse I quoted? 'Destroy it not,' it said. We simply can't have you rejecting the fruit of some Russian peasant's labor. Finish your drink so I can give you the next one."

"I don't-"

"Good girls drink, kitten," he admonished, interrupting her.

To her astonishment, she downed the vodka in one toss, only sputtering when every last drop was down. Before she had time to be angry with him, the conical stemmed glass full of topaz-colored wine was slid in front of her. She shuddered as she felt the sinful poison of the vodka coursing through her body. She silently prayed for forgiveness. She raised the wine to her lips and took a small sip. To her shock and dismay, it was sweet and delicious, with none of the burning fire of the earlier drink. 

"I own a vineyard over that way," Mot stated, watching her closely. "I smuggle this wine in at great expense, but I find that it's worth the cost to have perhaps the only bottles of Takay Aszú in the United States. The wealthiest Americans seek it out as gifts, and they pay top dollar for it." He gestured for her to take another drink, and she complied. He was silent as she did, watching with ill-concealed envy and vicarious desire. When she'd taken in a mouthful and began to lower the glass, he instructed, "Now, don't swallow right away. Roll it around in your mouth, yes, like that. Good girl." She involuntarily swallowed so that the liquid wouldn't spill from her mouth as she fought back a smile. "You like it, don't you? I knew it! I always guess right on a favorite wine. Don't I, Farley? Even if you don't let it breathe, it still tastes _so good._ "

The bartender grunted, and Mot continued, "As I was saying, the big men of this country, they seek this out. I don't care so much for the money, but the influence is invaluable. It's let me get my fingers in all sorts of fun pies." He paused as she took another drink, this time on her own. Her eyes half-closed as she rolled the fluid over her tongue, letting it coat the inside of her mouth before gulping it down. It wasn't until he refilled her glass that she realized how much she had consumed. "This wine has a distinction to it. It was made from special grapes, bred by me in the old days, of course. The wine they make when they ripen is fine, none could complain. If you let them stay after they're ripe, they get moldy. This is a very special mold, also made by me. They call it 'Noble rot,' so that's what I call it now, too. It concentrates the sugars, makes the wine so much sweeter, don't you agree?"

Penny shrugged, taking another drink. The glass barely touched the bar before she was taking another, and she began to feel a sensation of dizziness. Her glass was refilled, and Mot continued, "I was the only one making this wine for the longest time. Here and there, perfecting it, I gave it to kings and bishops in the old days. Sometime around the Seventeenth Century the secret got out, or at least that's when I noticed it did. Mine is still decidedly the best, though." He contentedly lapsed into silence as he watched her take drink after drink, until the bottle was half empty. He then stopped her, popping the cork back in with his thumb. "I think that's enough for tonight. It's time you get to work."

She eyed the bottle, fighting the desire to grab it and drink the whole container dry. Instead, she indignantly stood and gripped the tray, trying to keep her feet as the world twisted and writhed in time to the frenetic strains of the jazz band.

Mot spoke up one more time behind her, "You've smeared some of your lipstick. You should go into the dressing room to touch it up."

Penny didn't think of disobeying. She stumbled through the door to the backstage area just as the dancers were filing out. She sidled up to a vanity and looked at her reflection. The creature in the mirror barely looked recognizable to her. She was painted, clearly inebriated, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. This last was most frightening, as she wasn't sure if she was genuinely happy, if it was that strange compulsion that Mot had over her, or if it was the effect of the drink.

She started to touch up her makeup when a high, feminine voice piped up beside her, "Heya!"

Penny winced, turning to look at her sudden company. With a bit of effort, she focused on the woman. She was faced with a typical flapper girl, a silky plaited brunette with enchanting stormy-sea eyes, heavy makeup, and a scandalously short skirt. "Hello," Penny replied, hesitantly. She wasn't sure where to go from there.

"I'm Helen! I saw you here last night, but you were still taking things in, so I thought I'd let you work through on your own." Helen looked Penny up and down, snickering, "Looks like you're good and ossified, though, so you can probably handle me."

"I don't... I never drink," Penny tried to explain, but it even sounded pathetic to her own ears.

"You do now, kitten."

"Don't call me that!" Penny snarled, harsher than she meant to. She softened and stumbled, "I mean, that's what the M-what Mot calls me. I don't... uh."

"It's alright," Helen laughed. It was a light, tinkling sound like music but more free. "I heard him say it, I just wanted to know how far gone you were. So, what do I call you, Miss Bearcat?"

"Penny," she answered, straightening herself and self-consciously smoothing what skirt she had. "My name is Penny Dutch."

Helen laughed again. "Dutch? You mean like Pennsylvania Dutch? Oh honey, that's is just the berries!" She raised her hands as if envisioning a marquee, "Innocence Lost; The Story of Pennsylvania Dutch and Helen Troy!"

"You're name's Helen Troy?" Penny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It is now, Sheba. Come on, the master says you're on a break right now, we gotta loosen you up before you scare customers away." Her thin fingers laced through Penny's, and she was pulling her away.

"Mot said it's time to work..."

"And you will, we'll just be having fun while you do!"

They exited into the main room to a blast of hazy smoke and lively jazz. Before Penny had a full grasp of the situation, she was on the dance floor, trying to keep up with Helen's wild cavorting. She didn't want to dance, but she danced along and found that it brought her joy. The activity even pumped some of the poison through her, so her mind cleared up enough to experience the fun. After a few frenetic songs, she was pulled into the back room and in front of the mirror again to touch up the sweat-running makeup. Helen talked, and to her surprise, she found herself talking almost as much. In an hour, they had nearly swapped life stories.

At the end of the hour, Helen led Penny back to the bar, where the bartender passed a drink-laden tray to her and pointed. She obediently followed, with Helen at her side chatting away. A band of young college types was talking animatedly at her assigned table. She began putting the drinks down from her tray. Penny felt the distressingly familiar feeling of fingers dancing up her inner thigh. Her back stiffened, and she spilled one of the cups. Penny looked furiously at the man to her left, but he simply grinned at her, both hands in plain view. Following the offending hand to its connected arm and shapely, exposed shoulder, she saw that Helen was the culprit. "Sorry, Sheba, you bent over to give out the giggles, and I just had to give the gams a squeeze."

Penny turned beet red and stuttered while the college types cheered and laughed. Penny didn't even clean up the spilled drink, she simply replaced it from the bar and continued on the night. Table by table, her work was interrupted by Helen's casual touches, none of which were quite blatant as the first. Strangely, Penny found herself stealing glances at Mot, who kept nodding at her reassuringly and watching her every move.

The conversation between the two girls had continued until it was time to clean and leave the place. When they were standing outside, the conversation turned to their education.

"My father... died, and I was sent to live with my grandparents," Penny noted. "They were very strict, but they raised me to..." she laughed bitterly. "What am I even doing right now? If they could see me now, I don't know what they'd do."

Helen's own laugh softened Penny, "You want to talk about failed parenting? I got caught kissing this pretty little tomato, my first girlfriend, and my folks flipped. They weren't even Catholic, but they made the conversion just so they could lock me up in a special school where the nuns could beat the bulldagger out of me."

Penny didn't bother to remove the other woman's hand from her rear, she simply cocked her hip to remind Helen that it was there again. "Didn't work, I take it?" she said with a slight smile.

"Locking me up with a bunch of other lonely girls who got caught necking their girlfriends, and a bunch of older women who'd bend you over and spank you for being naughty? Uh, no. I talked back more than I ever did before because if you made Sister Maria mad enough, she'd get your panties down before swatting." The two shared a laugh at that, and Penny's ride was just audible in the distance.

"Listen," Helen broke in, suddenly serious. "I'm not done talking yet, want to have a sleepover? Your place?"

Penny almost said no out of hand. Something stopped her, though, and she glanced back at the darkened house. "Um... alright, but I just have a futon in a closet, really. There's not much room."

Helen broke into a sunny grin and threw her arms around Penny. "This is gonna be fun!" she squealed, and the next thing Penny knew they were in the car. Helen chattered away, but Penny found it difficult to listen. What had she agreed to? If Helen were so willing to take liberties in front of people, what would she do alone? She didn't know if she wanted to find out.

The ride was pleasant enough with Helen's hand on Penny's knee for most of the trip. When they arrived at the flophouse, they crept through the door and gathered up nightshirts and soaps. They slipped out the back and sat for a bit. "I don't even know what we're doing right now," Penny noted, doubt creeping into her voice.

Helen hushed her and lifted her already revealing skirt to show a leather garter. The flapper pulled a flask out of it and took a long drink. She held it out to Penny, who accepted it gingerly. A far cry from the sweet, exotic wine from Mortimer's cellar, the fluid inside burned like disinfectant. 

Sputtering, Penny shuttered and made to hand the flask back to Helen, who wordlessly put a hand on the bottom and brought it back to Penny's lips. The second drink was only marginally less awful, but the warmth spread again in her skin. Helen took another sip and put the flask on the ground. "A little quilt for you," she laughed, and then helped Penny with the pump. In short order, the bath was filled.

"So, which of us go first?"

"Sheba," Helen whispered, mock frustration in her voice. "It's just us girls, no need to be shy. You don't have anything I haven't seen before." She punctuated her statement by lifting the dress over her head and revealing that the garter was the only underwear she'd bothered to wear.

Suddenly beet red again, Penny stuttered and tried coming up with an excuse to return indoors, but was brought up short by Helen's small hands on the hem. The flapper was suddenly very close, and Penny froze while her dress was deftly cast aside. Helen had an easier time discarding Penny's underthings than Penny herself usually did. She found herself shivering in the night air and trying to cover herself with her hands. "Helen..." she started, but was dragged to the tub before she could finish. 

"Shh, you want some peeping tom to get a look at us? Come on."

The cold water relieved a bit of Penny's frustration. She was ironically more relaxed even as Helen slipped into the other side. There wasn't enough room for them to sit apart, so their legs ran aside from one another as they bathed. "I'm sorry, I thought..." she trailed off, feeling silly.

"Thought what?" Helen asked, scrubbing her face.

"I thought you wanted to get me in the bath to... uh."

Helen laughed again, her nose wrinkling adorably. "Of course, I _want to._ You're not ready for that, this is just a bath between girls." She stretched, enjoying the water despite the chill. Without the blended makeup on her neck, Penny could see the scars; two white pinpricks marred the soft skin.

"He bit you?" Penny whispered the question, suddenly brought back to the present and her mission.

"Only after I begged him," Helen replied, lightly touching the marks.

"You what? Why? I thought you liked girls?"

"I mostly like girls. Some men just _have it_ , you know? Maybe it's leftovers from the nuns, but sometimes it's freeing to have no control." Helen lapsed into a slight smile, lost in thought. When she came back to herself, she idly slid a finger over Penny's hand and over her wrist. "Girls are soft and sweet and fun. Sometimes soft and sweet isn't what does it."

"I'm here to kill him," Penny blurted out. It was the one part of her story that she hadn't yet shared. "He's a monster, and I came to kill him."

In response, Helen lifted Penny's hand lightly kissed her fingertips. "Of course you did, Sheba. When you're begging him for a little nibble, won't make any difference." She slid her cheek across Penny's palm and continued until her hand rested lightly on the scars.

Penny could feel Helen's racing pulse, saw the life in her eyes and was very conscious of the quickened breath passing through lightly parted lips. Without a word, Penny scrambled out of the tub and stumbled over to their nightshirts. She laughed, suddenly bitter, when she lifted her nightshirt. Gone was the shapeless cloth. It had been replaced by a black silk nightie barely long enough to conceal her delicates. Folded neatly beneath her new sleepwear, a set of lacy, immodest red bra, and panties.

"Hey!" Helen exclaimed, "Presents from the master!" She laughed and immediately began putting on her own set. With a sigh, Penny followed suit.

"You shouldn't call him master, Helen," Penny said, shifting uncomfortably. "He's a monster."

Helen twirled in place, excitedly watching the motion of her new clothes. "Of course he's a monster. He's a man, they're all monsters. And I don't call him master to his face. He likes it when you call him 'sir.' Isn't that fun?"

"I'm tired, Helen, I'm going to bed. Just... think about it, okay? I'm going to kill him, I think I know how but I just need the money. You'll be free, then." She entered the flophouse and stumbled to her room, remembering the sleeping arrangements only after she laid eyes on her futon.

"Told you already, Sheba, I'm not giving you the neck tonight." Helen's voice was a whisper, directly into Penny's ear. "Time for bed, though."

They shared the futon as well as a blanket. Though Penny opted for a damp rolled-up towel for a pillow, she wound up shifting in the night so that they were using the same pad.

The dreams she had that night were not the sort that should be repeated in polite company.


	5. A Night in Murderapolis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny allows herself to be distracted by her new... friend.

The light poured into the small room when the door flew open. It was clearly close to noon, and the old landlady had opened all of the curtains. Penny groaned and tried to throw the little blanket over her head, but the cool air caressing her legs made her remember the thin nightshirt she was wearing, and she shot up.

  
That was a mistake, her head throbbed, and she felt as though she needed to cough but stopped herself for fear of the building nausea. 

  
Helen slipped quietly in, fully dressed with her usual grin. “Wakey time, Sheba. I got you some feel-better tea.”

  
“Helen?” Penny croaked, gathering the blanket to herself to protect her modesty. “What is this? Is this the affliction?”

  
“What?” Helen laughed, catching herself and lowering the titter to a throaty chuckle. “Penny, honey, you’re just hungover. Here, I brought you this.”

  
Penny eyed the tray that Helen had placed at the foot of the futon. There was a ceramic glass and a peeled lemon sitting innocently in the center. She picked up the glass and sniffed it, almost recoiling. 

  
“Drink, all at once. Then bite the lemon.”

  
Penny obediently put her lips to the glass and took a sip. Her heart jumped, and she hesitated, to which Helen rolled her eyes and jerked Penny’s elbow upwards. The entire contents of the cup slid into Penny’s mouth, burning and polluting as it went. Penny tried to spit, but found her lips sealed tight against Helen’s. With no other choice, she swallowed and gasped when Helen’s lips withdrew. The flapper took advantage of Penny’s stunned lips and popped a lemon slice directly onto her tongue.

  
“Sorry sweety, ‘feel good juice’ really only feels good afterward. It’s awful while you’re drinking it.”

  
“What was in it?” Penny said, relaxing a bit as the warmth from her stomach spread through her and washed away the pain and discomfort. The foul taste was even eliminated by the crushed lemon slice still held in her mouth.

  
“Oh, the master has been teaching me some potions.” When Helen saw Penny’s suddenly pale face, she laughed, “Nothing sinister. Not this brew, anyway, it’s mostly boiled

willow bark, spinach, and seaweed with whipped olive oil and gin. Also, this mushroom powder he keeps a secret for ‘rapid digestion.’ It’s good stuff, if you ignore the flavor.”  
“Oh,” Penny sighed, shoulders slumping. “More black magic.”

  
“Yeah,” Helen nodded. “He’s been teaching me some. Now get dressed, I think we’re playing hookey today.”

  
“What? Aren’t you worried about getting fired?”

  
“Fired? Me? I don’t think so. He’s never fired me before.” She leaned back, as if in thought.

  
“Aren’t you going to leave? So I can get dressed?”

  
Helen laughed again, this time ignorant of her volume. “Sweety, I saw everything last night. If I was going to make a move before you asked me to in your right mind, we’d have been necking until the tub boiled over.”

  
Penny blushed deeply, but wanted no more reminders of her flagrancy from the night before. So, she stood and stripped with her back to the openly leering flapper. The waitress uniform seemed to hug her curves in a way that Penny had not been conscious of before. When she had smoothed her skirt and turned around, Helen was staring at the hem of her dress with her tongue, pressing the corner of her mouth.

  
The two stopped again in front of the mirror and applied makeup. Suddenly, Penny’s ease was back, and the two were giggling and nudging each other. After they were done, just as Penny was straightening up, Helen leaned over and planted a kiss on her throat. Penny looked back at the mirror, first at Helen’s sly smile and then at the dark red lip print over her jugular vein. Since good girls wear makeup, Penny shrugged and decided to leave it.

  
They stepped onto the street, and Penny was shocked to see that the sun was well over its zenith. She had slept most of the day away. “Where are we going?” Penny asked finally.

  
“Well, you said you have a way to kill the master. I wanted to help.”

  
Penny raised her eyebrow and looked around. If any of the passers-by had overheard, they made no indication. “I thought you liked your... Mot.”

  
“I do!” Helen insisted. “But I want to see if you can actually win.”

  
“Aren’t you worried that he’s going to punish you?”

  
“Sheba, there’s worried, and there’s excited. Remember how my mouth got dirtier to get a good spanking from the nuns? Master does so much better than spank.”

  
Penny decided to drop it, then. She found herself mostly disturbed but also possibly curious, and she knew that there lay a dangerous seed. “I read that he was once defeated with myrrh.”

  
“You mean like... in that old Christmas story?”

  
“Yes, it may be that connection that does it. Or it might be because it’s for embalming and cleaning corpses, I don’t know. Still, apparently, a portion was flung into his face, and he disappeared for centuries. If I get close enough to deliver a lot of it to him and hold it against him, I think I can end him forever.”

  
“Oh, that’s exciting! So you’re trying to find some? Where’s it from?”

  
“Well, I found some in a catalog I could order by mail, but... it would take a lot of money. That’s why I agreed to work for Mot. I couldn’t get hired anywhere, and I needed the money. It might also help me catch him alone.”

  
“That’s a good plan, Sheba, but I guess that means we can’t go looking tonight. So I have another plan, since we’re playing hooky.” She moved in very close. “We hit the town tonight. Mot’s isn’t the only place in town, and I can show you how you can make money faster. How’s that sound?”

  
“I... I don’t want to be a bother, and I feel like I’m losing myself in this city already. We shouldn’t.”

  
“I bet it’ll put a smile on your puss!”

  
“I don’t-”

  
“We all know that good girls smile, Sheba.” Helen’s face broke out in triumph as Penny’s resistance crumbled, and she finally assented. “Good! Now, let’s get you some new clothes!”

  
They spent the afternoon in various clothing shops, loading new handbags with several dresses, socks, hose, and gloves. They finished off with hats, and all of it paid for out of Helen’s purse.

  
As the sun set, the two women found a public restroom in which to change and hit the town. Penny kept telling herself that she was trying to find the source of Helen’s careless wealth, but she was smiling more often than not. They went on a tour of underground and secret bars and speakeasies of Minneapolis. After the first one, Penny was finally enticed to dance. In the small town from which she hailed, she had participated in the old fashioned folk dances, well chaperoned, closely formulaic, but still very fun. The freewheeling dances encouraged by the jazz bands were wild, untamed things.

  
After the second stop, the sun had entirely gone. Helen took them through more back alleys than the main streets to avoid curfew patrols, but that also helped Penny notice their stalkers. Two young men or older teens kept a respectful distance. Still, they were definitely following and watching the flappers as they wandered the city. Helen was unconcerned, however, and they entered the third speakeasy by way of a restaurant’s upper level. The police must have been on the take for this place, because there was no way to mistake the sounds heard from the main floor. This was also where Helen’s lessons began.

  
The waitresses transporting foaming glasses of beer and amber-colored whiskey were dressed even more scandalously than the uniforms preferred by Mot. They flirted shamelessly with the clientele, and even stopped to dance between orders. They lacked efficiency, but they indeed appeared to be enjoying their work. Penny watched them, trying to process exactly what she was seeing. One of the servers bent over the table to deliver a drink and received a pinch. Instead of getting angry or slapping the offender, she wheeled around and landed in the man’s lap to thunderous laughter. When she leaned back to give everyone a view down her blouse, another man put a wrinkled, grimy bill between his teeth and snapped at it like a dog, growling playfully. So paid, she stuffed the bill down her shirt and disentangled herself with ease. The man she’d just been using as a chair gave her another bill, this time she let him put it between her breasts. With a wink and a flounce, she continued on with her job.

  
“See, honey, sometimes the men give little gifts for girls that treat them nice,” Helen noted, and took Penny’s hand. “Sometimes it’s even the women, which is fun. Now that the drinking’s secret, people who got to drink have all sorts of secrets that go along with it.”

  
“I don’t think I can... I’m not that kind. I’m just a waitress...” Penny sputtered, reeling. Was Helen actually suggesting she prostitute herself?

  
“It’s not like I’m telling you to be a hooker, Sheba, relax,” Helen insisted, following Penny’s train of thought. “It’s more like a dance or acting. They got money, and you make them feel like they want to be generous. People are more generous when they feel good.” She ordered a round, and Penny accepted the dubious fluid.

  
After Penny had finished her drink with some difficulty, they went to the dance floor. “See them drooling us? We’re what they want, and if we shake a little for them, they might want to share a little. See?”

  
Penny jerked away as Helen’s hand slipped down from her waist. The flapper pursued, however, and continued dancing close. Penny’s eyes fell on the table that her friend had indicated, occupied by college-age men learning to be lawyers or such on their fathers’ dime. They were indeed watching with some interest, quietly talking as if speculating.  
Helen cut her eyes at them and smiled crookedly, sliding her hand down from Penny’s waist again. She waited for the jazz to spike in energy, and rocked her hips to the tune, flipping her own skirt suggestively just as she raised Penny’s for a sustained look at her lacy under-things. Penny paused briefly, noting the hungry looks in the men, before stepping away. She faked a smile, but the embarrassed laugh made the expression honest instead as Helen blew a kiss at her closest admirer.

  
When the band took a break to wipe the sweat from their faces, the two flappers dropped into empty seats with the three men. As they tried to catch their breath, the boldest man finished his drink and motioned for another. “So, you ladies come often?”

  
“Often as I can,” Helen responded instantly. Her lascivious wink left no doubt that the double meaning was intentional.

  
“Couple of wildcats here!” the bold one laughed, and the table joined in. Ice broken, they talked about Nothing for nearly an hour, with the men paying for round after round. Penny nursed her drinks as best she could, but it took very few for her to feel as if she was floating.

  
Helen eventually noticed her friend fading away, and pulled the bold one up to dance with them while their friends watched in unveiled jealousy. Penny could no longer keep to the rhythm; she was too far gone. The drunk huntress tried her best, and neither of her dance partners seemed to mind that she danced so close to them for the support. After several sets, Penny started to feel more herself thanks to the sobering effect of the exercise. She was able to get back into the dance.

  
The next thing she knew, the man was paying their final tab, and the three of them were leaving. Penny kept giving panicked glances at Helen, but received no explanation or reassurance.

  
Halfway to their fourth stop, Helen stopped in an extremely secluded street between a butcher shop and what appeared to be a tobacco store. She pushed the man against a wall and smashed her mouth against his. Penny tried to recoil, but Helen pulled her close and held her tight, to which the man hesitantly followed suit. Helen broke the kiss and planted more down his jawline and onto his neck. Penny looked into his eyes as he turned to her, clearly expecting her to take over. She almost did, the wild dancing, the novelty, and the wordless encouragement of Helen proving to be a formidable temptation. She only paused due to the look in the man’s eyes; his pupils dilated fully, his gaze went far away, and his eyes clouded dully.

  
He slid down the wall, and his head lolled forward as Helen stepped back, daubing her lipstick. “He was a healthy one, lasted almost a minute longer than usual,” she noted. She rummaged through his pockets and pulled out his billfold, a pocket watch, and a brass cigarette case.

  
“You’re robbing him!” Penny asked, scandalized. “I thought you were...”

  
“What?” Helen laughed, “In love? Honey, I told you it takes a special man to tear me away from the girls, and mister daddy’s moneybags here isn’t gonna cut it.”  
“What did you do to him?”

  
Helen slyly held up her lipstick tube. Rather than the typical dark red lipstick that she favored, this one was all black. “Another thing the master taught me. Just gotta make sure you don’t use tongue, otherwise you’re both taking a nap.”

  
“He’s not dead? You didn’t...”

  
“Him? Nah, I don’t kill people.”

  
Something about the specific emphasis she used gave Penny pause. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  
“You wanted to get our chaperones off our backs, right? Nothing gets that done like a good meal.”

  
Penny sputtered and protested as Helen led her away. Just before they turned the corner, the two figures appeared and dragged the insensate man into the shadows.

  
The two continued on their night, with Helen keeping Penny just a little too drunk to let her thoughts drift back to their victim. They danced and drank while Helen instructed on various ways to flirt and banter, all the while receiving little gifts and considerations. Penny found herself envious of her friend’s smooth and bold manner.

  
That night, they again shared a bath and fell asleep in a tangled heap on the little futon.


	6. The Fall of Troy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny gives in to many temptations.

The next day they took it easy. Penny kept trying to plan a coordinated effort against Mot, but Helen was no longer in the mood for that intrigue and insisted that they instead work on their tans. To Penny's fading protests, they found themselves traveling outside of town on a taxi to a secluded tract of beach along the Upper Mississippi. Penny protested again, to which Helen pleaded.

“Sheba, listen, the sun's gonna be good for you. We work nights, you've got to get it while you can.” While she pleaded, Helen stripped out of her clothes until she stood brazenly in front of Penny.

“No! I'm not getting nude in public!”

“Look around, nobody's coming. This is more private than your bedroom and you were saying some fun things in your sleep last night.”  
“What?”

“Pulling your leg. Nobody comes here, and if they do they're gonna be wearing sunlight, too.” She turned around, drawing Penny's eye before the blushing huntress averted them. “Maybe we'll start a petting party!” Helen emphasized the last four syllables by hitching her hips back and forth.

“Helen!” Penny hissed, still averting her eyes. 

“Oh, you're all wet!” Helen laughed, and then stopped suddenly. 

Penny waited a few heartbeats and then looked. Helen wasn't standing where she had been. Casting around, she nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw that Helen had silently moved to her side. “Hel-” she was cut off when the nude woman pressed her lips to Penny's. The huntress retreated a few steps, stuttering out indignant protests. Helen pursued her until she was ankle deep in water. She then shoved Penny and completely submerged her in the placidly flowing water. Penny came up, sputtering. Helen then pulled her and deposited her on the shore, shocked and shivering. “What are you doing!?” Penny demanded.

“Get it? You're all wet! I noodled you'd have to strip down with me until your duds are dry. Just lay them out on a rock and you'll be fine.

In very little time, Penny complied and was sunning sullenly on the rocks. At first, she'd shielded herself with her hands but at Helen's continuous ribbing and reminders, she'd finally relented. Over the next hour, they said little until finally, Helen broke the silence.

“That one looks like a dandelion,” she noted.

“What?” Penny asked, confused. 

“The cloud. Looks like a dandelion.”

Penny followed her gaze to one of the few small clouds in the sky. It had a starburst pattern to it, with a smaller starburst inside that caught the light differently than the rest of the cloud. “Looks like a starfish eating another starfish to me.”

They broke out into laughter, previous tension forgotten. They chatted nonsense for several more hours, and then they dressed in their now mostly dry clothing. They'd taken a cab out to the boonies, and now they were forced to walk back. On the outskirts of town, they stopped at a small diner for a late lunch and moved on, until Helen suddenly started beaming. “Sheba! You've gotta see my place! You could even stay there!” She squealed, clearly excited by the idea. “It's not far, you don't have to decide anything yet just come on and look around.”

With only a few more seconds' badgering, Penny and Helen were detouring towards Helen's living situation. Penny didn't know what she had expected. For some reason, in her mind's eye she had pictured a den of iniquity with dirty pictures on the walls and everything some shade of red or pink. What she got was decidedly more normal, though unexpectedly affluent.

Helen's apartment was three rooms, huge for a single girl in her early twenties, and furnished in a solidly middle class style. There was a soft reading chair, a large bookshelf filled to capacity, a radio in the corner, and in the bedroom a huge, downy-soft four post bed veiled in delicate silk curtains. The only indication that this was not, in fact, the apartment of a somewhat wealthy flapper was in the kitchen: a copper cauldron suspended over a modern kitchen stove. 

“Well?” Helen asked, after the short tour was over.

“It's very nice,” Penny answered, sincerely.

“But you want to move in, now?”

Penny almost refused. Talking to Helen was easy, and even her most brazen flirtations were merely disquieting to Penny. She had also made it clear that she would go no farther than Penny wanted, which was reassuring, as that bed definitely looked more comfortable than her little futon. She would also be leaving town after she killed Mot, and spending more time with her friend was an appealing thought. “Yes! I'll stay with you, Helen. I'd love to.” 

The two hugged, and then the rest of the day was spent moving Penny’s few effects across town. Somehow, Mot’s driver had gotten the message and was outside of Helen’s when it came time to work. The pair didn’t question him as they got in and drove away. Helen only noted that it was nice to have a driver instead of the necessity of hiring a cab, as was her regular routine.

Mot grinned as the pair entered. “Well, it’s my wayward lambs!” he greeted, rising from a stool with his long arms stretched wide. “Enjoy your day off?”

“Sorry, master,” Helen purred, slipping under one of his arms. “We played hooky. Forgive and forget?”

“I’m sure you can make it up to me,” he chuckled in his deep-timbre voice, raising to a laugh as he pinched her rear, eliciting a squeal.

Penny felt a flash of emotion, thinking of the bite marks on her friend. As if reading her mind, Mot grinned a crooked smile and nuzzled into the giggling flapper’s neck.  
The huntress flushed, and insisted, “We’re here to work, Mot.”

“Uh-oh,” the vampire mocked in a stage whisper, “I think the kitten’s getting jealous. Who do you think she wants more, you or me?”

“Me by a mile, master!” Helen laughed, flashing a flirtatious smile at her new roommate, who was too flustered to argue.

Apparently not surprised, Mot brushed a finger on her cheek and responded, “Time will tell. Kitten says it’s time to work.”

Helen gave an exaggerated pout and flounced off towards the bar. Penny followed, sparing a glare for the amused vampire.

Penny’s first order was for a table of rough-looking young men. Judging by their leather skins and calloused hands, she assumed that they were construction workers. She placed the glasses on the table, deftly moving away from a questing hand before it reached the exposed skin of her knee. She even managed to make it look unintentional.

Her second order was for a table in the corner, a pair of flapper girls taking a load off after dancing themselves dizzy. They dismissed her as if she was furniture, and she turned around. Helen was at the table of construction workers, already delivering a second round of bathtub beer. Unlike Penny, she happily let the calloused hands scratch her thighs, even wiggling a little against them when they ventured into the skirt. She dutifully giggled and joined in their dirty jokes. Several times, she stole hungry glances at Penny as if to make sure that she was watching. After a few moments of such treatment, the rough men let her go, passing a tip her way, which was happily accepted. Halfway back to the bar, she bent over at the waist to stick the bills into her socks. Penny noticed. So did the construction workers.

The huntress set her jaw, thinking. She needed money for supplies to kill Mot. She needed to make the customers look at her that way. Good girls like attention. If she could get that sort of attention, she would earn money faster. She sidled up to Helen. “Hel, you’re so free. How do you let them do that to you?”

“I dunno,” Helen shrugged. “It’s what they want, and it’s not so bad. Mot won’t let them go too far, and they know the rules. It’s fun to have all of you looking at me like that.” The inclusion of Penny wasn’t lost on her, and she blushed. “Tell ya what. I won’t get jealous if you tart it up a little. We’ll play bangtails; see who can grift these maroons out of more lettuce. Winner’s a trapeze artist!”

Penny looked over the crowd and chewed her bottom lip. She really did need the money. “Alright,” she nodded, growing more confident. “Let’s do it.”  
They hit the tables with renewed vigor. Penny quickly fell behind, watching in thinly-veiled envy again as Helen effortlessly danced from table to table. There were more hands-on her legs and rump over the next two hours than there were notes in the house band’s frenetic music. By contrast, Penny stiffened and stuttered as she felt the gaze of the rowdy crowd. She was red as a beet when she leaned over to accept a gratuity, only to hear the creaking of chairs to her left and right as young men craned for a better look.  
The police were at their usual table, shouting racy encouragement to the ladies on the dance floor. Penny approached the bartender for her next order, only to point at the nearly skipping Helen. The flapper half-turned and shot her a sly look, one that begged for her attention. Seeing that she was taking a break, the bartender passed her a glass of wine, which she absently drank.

Helen flirted as usual with the officers. She even went the extra mile and hand-delivered a whiskey to the far side of the table by simply bending over it. The view was immediately appreciated. The thoroughly corrupt lawmen started loudly proclaiming lewd promises of what they’d do to her if she let them. She rebuffed these declarations with practiced grace, yet stuck around to keep flirting.

All the while, she would bite her lip and make thirsty faces at Penny, who found herself more and more angry with the situation. Finally, draining the last of her wineglass, she stood and stomped over to Helen. Without a word, she gathered Helen into a tight hug and planted an awkward, unpracticed kiss on her lips. Despite Penny’s relative lack of experience, Helen groaned and melted against her, returning her embrace and flipping her tongue experimentally past Penny’s unresisting lips.

The two disengaged, Helen grinning and Penny shocked at herself, with the jeering cops seemingly disappointed that neither girl would be available that night. They moved away from the raucous table and slipped into the backstage door to fix their makeup before the last push of the night.

“That was berries, Sheba!” Helen had to suppress a grin. “I knew you were a sil.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Penny finally admitted, blushing furiously. “Almost time to finish up.”

“Yep! Time to shuffle the deck. Remember, at the end of the night, whoever has more cabbage is a trapeze artist!” Helen winked and shot out the door as if it were a literal footrace.

“I don’t know what that means either,” Penny said to her reflection.

“Kids and their talk, you know,” chuckled the voice of Mot, behind her. She whirled around, heart racing. “What’s this I heard about a wager?”

“I uh...” Penny struggled, trying to force anger to replace her momentary panic. “We were seeing who could raise more money from the customers.” She kept her eyes locked on his smirking mouth. “Winner’s a trapeze artist, apparently.”

The smirk ticked up, just enough to be noticeable. His movements were so smooth that she didn’t immediately realize that he was approaching her. When his proximity finally alarmed her, she tried to back up only to have the corner of the vanity press painfully into her backside, causing her to look back for an escape. When she looked back up to where his mouth should be, she found that he was ducking slightly, and she locked her gaze directly into his void-black eyes.

This time, she didn’t see planets. The unbroken darkness flooded around her like cool water, depriving her of sensation and rendering her comfortably numb. The pressure gradually increased on her skin as she sank down into the depths. Then, below her, she saw a faint glow. Tiny as it was, the glow became everything. With the glow came a faint humming sound, which grew as she descended towards it. Down she drifted towards the light, relaxing ever further. She felt her heart thud slowly in her deeply rising and falling chest. Then, the light was at her feet, and she could feel the hum rumble softly through her body. She drifted deeper, the light was at her ankles, at her knees, past her hips, in front of her face. That’s where she stopped, nose inches away from the everything light that took her feeling, hearing, sight, and even her smell and taste. It took her thoughts, absorbed into the soft, blue-yellow glow. She slowly reached out a hand to touch the light, grasp it, hold it, and love it. The second her fingertips brushed it, it popped with a world-shattering clap, and she was plunged into darkness.

She jerked back to reality on a bar stool. There were three empty wine glasses in front of her, and she could immediately tell that she had drained them herself. Helen was busily flirting with the last occupied table in the nearly empty place, draped across a middle-aged man’s lap with her head in the lap of his date. They were all laughing merrily, and when the couple finally decided to leave, they both planted soft kisses on Helen’s face and slipped her a bill.

The flapper sauntered back to Penny, grinning ear-to-ear. “Hey, you’re back! Isn’t that mesmer stuff great?” she laughed, biting her lip as she searched Penny’s dazed eyes. “It’s so freeing, right? And the feeling after is just... Mmm!” She shivered pleasantly. “Anyway, time to pony. How much did you get?”

Penny pulled the wadded money out of her handbag and started to count, self-consciously. “I... Looks like sixty dollars!” she noted, shocked.

“Hm,” Helen hummed, theatrically. She put her foot on Penny’s stool, brushing the huntress between the thighs with her toes while she fished the folded bills out of her sock. The pose drew Penny’s eye to her lacy panties, revealed as gravity slid her skirt up her thigh. “Well, that’s a shame,” she teased. “I got fifty-eight.”

Without thinking about the consequences, Penny blurted out, “What about the two bills from the married couple? Did we break even?” She didn’t want to cheat, after all. Good girls don’t welsh on a bet.

Helen pretended to be reminded. “Oh, yeah! Let’s see.” She flipped out the two bills and, without breaking eye contact with Penny, noted, “A couple of C-Notes. Looks like two hundred and fifty-eight.”

Penny wasn’t sure that she was disappointed. Whatever a ‘trapeze artist’ was, Helen wanted to be one, and good girls don’t welsh on a bet. Helen was obviously thrilled, and she had acquired a lot of

money. She accepted the other girl’s help to get off the stool, and the two walked arm-in-arm to the door.

Their ride was idling softly on the curb, with the driver absorbed in a book. As they approached, their path was blocked by a wall of meat. Looking up, Penny saw that it was her least favorite customer, one of the corrupt policemen that spent their nights in Mot’s speakeasy. Confused, Penny took a step back but was stopped by Helen. At a glance, Penny saw that they were surrounded by all five of them.

“You teased a lot of scratch out of those good folks down there,” the officer sneered. “We were talking, though that seemed like a con.”

“Yeah?” Helen snorted, almost succeeding in keeping the tremble out of her voice. “Even if I wasn’t about to knock socks with Penny, the last thing on my mind would be Betty Badges and the Minneapolis Molls.”

With a snarl, the big man shoved Penny to the side and sent his big, meaty fist into Helen’s spine. She nearly buckled with force and gasped in pain, stumbling into the officer in front of her. He savagely backhanded her, kicking out at her shins. She spun, pulling a fist out of her handbag and flinging a powder into the second cop’s face. As the man recoiled, the other four descended with batons.

This had all happened so fast, Penny hadn’t had time to react. She pulled her Apache revolver out of her own handbag and fired off three shots into the largest man’s back. He coughed, sputtering, and turned with a shocked expression. She fired off two more before he crashed into her, but by that time, she had flipped the weapon around and run her fingers through the loops. Even with the size difference, the knuckle duster cracked his jaw, and he was unconscious before they were on the ground. She used the switchblade, stabbing twice before wriggling out.

The powder, whatever it had been, did its work, and a red-black sludge poured sluggishly out of the stricken officer’s eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. The final three had finished with Helen and rounded on Penny. A shadow cut them off; Mot had arrived.

“Out of the way, Mot!” one officer growled.

“No.”

“We got a good deal going, don’t ruin it over a couple of dykes!”

“The deal,” Mot sneered, “was that you leave my girls alone, and you get to drink free. You didn’t leave my girls alone. Deal’s off.”

“Then we’ve gotta bust your place up, pal.”

Mot actually laughed at this. “I don’t think you grasp your situation. The deal is off, because I intend to kill you.”

They didn’t use their batons. Something about the certainty in his voice obviously unnerved the three men, and two of them drew their pistols. One planted his feet and opened fire, while the other retreated as he emptied his revolver. The third, the leader and organizer of the crew, turned and fled. Mot raised his arms and let both fire dry. Penny could see moonlight filtering through the large holes torn in the vampire, and marveled when those holes closed. Mot took a single stride that somehow covered the intervening ten feet. Penny thought he was going to bite the officer, but he did not. Instead, he seemed to push his fingers beneath the officer’s chest, gripping hard and eventually yanking the man’s rib cage open. The smarter officer had reloaded by then, and raised his weapon to fire. He made eye contact. Penny saw the instant that the man’s face went slack.  
“Officer, that’s not a gun in your hand, it’s a banana.”

The man looked confused, marveling at the weapon in his grip.

“You don’t shoot with a banana, foolish man. You peel it.”

The officer slid his hand down the weapon, clicking the hammer back as he mimed peeling a banana.

“Good. I bet that banana would taste delicious.”

Dutifully, he put the barrel in his mouth, suffering a bout of confusion when his teeth couldn’t penetrate the metal. The pain of this resistance brought him back to himself, but in his panic to remove the weapon, he jostled the hair-trigger and wound up just as dead.

“Not so delicious after all,” Mot noted. He stepped to the battered form of Helen, gazing down at her. “You are less worse for wear, Penny. Can you get the door?”

Looking with trepidation at the four corpses. “Of course, but... one got away. He’s going to bring the lot of them down on us.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Mot responded, scooping up the bruised and bloody Helen. “Come on, the door.”

Penny obediently preceded Mot into the house, opening doors for him as he went. She had expected him to bring her to a bedroom. Instead, he brought her to the grimy and dilapidated kitchen. He laid her out on the island in the center, bunching up his own showman’s jacket beneath her braids. He slid a knife out of the block on the counter.

“What are you doing?” Penny asked, interposing herself between the vampire and her friend.

“Relax, I need to get her out of those clothes so I can tend her wounds. I could take them off in a more traditional fashion, but I suspect she has a few broken ribs.”

Hesitating, Penny looked at Helen and then back to Mot. Finally, she relented, and the vampire slit the clothing with precision and practice. The wounds on her face looked horrid, with clearly broken bones and ghastly misshapen swellings. What had been concealed by her dress was worse. Penny suppressed a sob, convinced that Helen may never recover.

Mot turned to his cabinets and rummaged through a series of jars until he found one labeled ‘tākaltu.’ The pale salve inside smelled of lilacs and tomato when he opened it, and he handed it to Penny. “Apply generously to her wounded flesh,” he instructed, “I have another preparation to make.”

Just like that, he was gone. Penny started with the bruises over Helen’s stomach, surprised at how far each scoop could be spread. She worked her way down, slathering over her friend’s hips and thighs. Unsure about how forceful she ought to be, she worked it into the muscles gingerly. 

When she was done, she started over, working her way up this time. Despite the ghastly appearance of the injuries, Penny didn’t feel any floating ribs and felt heartened. When she got to the breasts, she hesitated. Whether it was the nudity in the drafty old house or because of Penny’s hands on her skin, Helen had broken out into goosebumps. Her nipples were small and hard on her now, gently rising and falling breasts. Forcing guilt through her mind for the impure thoughts about her wounded friend, Penny lathered Helen’s breasts and attempted not to notice the soft, yielding feeling beneath her hands. Penny moved on up, and worried over a slight misshape of Helen’s collarbone. When she spread her lotion-coated hands across Helen’s neck, the flapper’s eyes fluttered half-open, and she cooed lasciviously. She wriggled in a way that suggested that she was being freed of pain and filled with other, more primal sensations. Penny tried to ignore this as she tried to work the salve as best she could on Helen’s battered face.

Just as she finished, Mot appeared. “That will do, kitten,” he informed her, and began placing tools and more jars around the half-conscious, giggling flapper. “My care will take you home. You don’t want to be here for what happens next. I’ll bring Helen home myself.”

Penny hesitated.

“Anything else?”

“Why didn’t you kill that last officer? Why did you... make him?”

Mot laughed. “Kitten, it’s like making love. When you have done something as much as I have, sometimes it’s more fun to watch.”

Penny blushed and turned to the door.

“Do try to get home before the side effects really get going,” he warned, then began to work on Helen.

Penny didn’t ask what side effects. She looked briefly in horror at her hands, already busy absorbing the final lingering residue of salve. Shaking herself out of her fretting, she left. The car still idled at the curb, and the driver was still absorbed in his book. Penny threw herself into the back seat and scowled at him. “Lot of good you were,” she snarled.

He shrugged as he pulled away. “Mot doesn’t pay me to intervene. He pays me to drive.”

Penny scowled harder and looked out of the window at the scenery rushing past. She finally relaxed, slumping back, and let herself feel. Expecting a flood of relief, triumph, worry, and guilt, she was instead filled with another emotion altogether. She felt warm all over her skin, which tingled and insisted on awareness. Even her dress was too much sensation, and she stripped it off. Sitting and panting in her under-things, she attempted at first to do everything she could to avoid touching her skin. Slowly, experimentally, she let her fingertips brush against her thigh. This elicited a shocked gasp from her. She repeated the process, and then bit her lip. Her fingers slipped over her skin boldly now, and she let her eyes close with the joy of it. 

Then, just like that, they had arrived. Helen’s building loomed above, and Penny realized with horror that she had put on a show for the driver. She threw on her dress and stumbled out of the vehicle. She was relieved to find the door locked, and even more relieved and shocked to find Helen sitting in her reading chair. She looked fully healed, the former livid bruising now simply yellow marks on her skin and the deformed bones reset and good as new.

“Helen? I-” Penny was cut off when Helen leaped from her chair and planted kiss after kiss on her lips and cheeks. The tingling sensitivity nearly overwhelmed her, and she gently but firmly pushed Helen off of her. “I thought you were hurt!” Penny panted, trying to focus.

“Hurt? Oh, yeah. Master took care of that. He can take people apart, but he can also put them together pretty good. Ready for bed?”

“I... yes. Let’s go.”

With a happy squeal, Helen took Penny by the hand and dragged her to the bedroom. She threw the huntress down onto the bed and mounted her. As she deftly rid Penny of her blouse and skirt, the prudish woman weakly attempted to slow her down. “Helen, what...?”

“Sshhh,” Helen shushed, kissing Penny on her lips, then on her jaw, and her neck and her collarbone. “I told you, winner gets to be a trapeze artist.”

“I...” Good girls don’t welsh on bets. “I...” Good girls don’t welsh on bets. “Ohhhh....” Good girl.

Helen continued to kiss her way down until she was nipping and biting at the lace of her panties. Penny couldn’t hold still, wriggling and writhing while she stared in open-eyed amazement at the ceiling. She could only gasp as Helen hooked her fingers through Penny’s panties and slid them over her thighs, calves, and ultimately over her toes. Helen crawled back up, kissing her legs all the way. Gently, insistently, she pressed her fingertips into Penny’s inner thighs, coaxing her legs apart. She nuzzled Penny’s pubic hair, and then planted a few superficial kisses. Overwhelmed, Penny knotted her hands in the downy bedspread, groaning girlishly.

Helen gave a long, slow lick, and Penny rewarded her with another mewling gasp. Helen’s next lick was deeper, quicker, and more forceful. The next one continued this trend, and again, until the lewd slurping filled the bedroom, competing only with Penny’s soft cries. When these had reached something of a crescendo, Helen switched tack and pulled up with her fingers, exposing her next target. She attacked all around Penny’s clitoris with thirsty gusto. When she felt that a little more encouragement was needed, Helen slipped a finger inside, curling it rhythmically and insistently. That was the final straw; Penny was sent careening over the edge. She grabbed a soft pillow and pressed it over her own face. Failing at preventing a scream, she bit down, intending to bite down on the pillow, but managed to catch her knuckle instead. She squeezed with her legs, trying to dislodge her enthusiastic lover, but succeeded only in making her situation even less resistible. She felt the warm, unyielding head buried between her legs. 

The night went on like this for several hours, with Helen switching targets for her talented tongue periodically. Penny lost the number of times that she’d been coaxed into ecstasy. Several times, her full, rolling eyes thought they saw Mot sitting in a chair in the corner. Finally, Helen decided it was time and stripped out of her own uniform to crawl up the sweaty mess that had been Penny Dutch. Helen had intended to sleep, but the look of abject surrender in Penny’s eyes made her realize that she was just not ready for morning to come.

They kissed for a while, while Penny got her breathing under control. By and by, a gentle pressure was put on her scalp. Looking at Helen in confusion, she was directed to a slip down to Helen’s waiting spread-eagle. Far less experienced than Helen, she gave it her best. To her credit, it wasn’t long until Helen was screaming from around a mouthful of down comforter. 

They swapped pleasure in this way until morning.


	7. Aftercare Frolics

Penny jerked awake as the sun pierced the thick curtains. The luxurious blankets were warm, and the body next to her was even warmer. 

As she became aware of Helen, the memories of the night before came crashing back to her. She sat bolt upright, waking Helen, and began to sob. “We... I shouldn’t have...”

“Hey, Sheba, shhh....” Helen pressed against Penny, wrapping her arms around her and rocking her softly. “It was a wild night. It’s okay to feel a little lathered up about it.”

“No!” Penny cried, tears now streaking the night-crusted mascara down her cheeks. “What we did, that was a sin! I can’t... I couldn’t... Ohhh, what did I do?”

Helen shushed her gently. “Sheba,” she said softly, kissing her cheek, then her temple, “What we did was wild, but no sin.” She continued her sweet kisses. When her lips pressed against Penny’s ear, she whispered, “Now smile... there’s a good girl.”

Despite herself, Penny felt a grin tug at her cheeks. Good girls smile, after all. She pressed back against Helen only a little, but the flapper noticed the change immediately. Her delicate arms squeezed one last time, and then started caressing her collarbone. Her fingers traveled delicately down, taking an indirect route to Penny’s hardened nipples. The huntress gasped softly, her lips parting. She brought her own hands up to stop Helen’s softly circling fingertips. Instead, She caressed up her arms until she was holding Helen’s head against her. Helen, for her part, multitasked spectacularly and kissed and nibbled at Penny’s neck. At the same time, one hand traveled down, and the other pinched and teased her nipples. 

Penny gasped and mewled, some part of her hating herself for being so pliable and the other part begging her to go further, to hurry up and see to her growing needs.

Helen’s small, warm palm slid down Penny’s stomach slowly, but with purpose. Her fingers curled as she reached Penny’s dun-brown pubic hair, raking the skin beneath to leave no doubt about their claim. Helen first squeezed Penny’s outer lips, rubbing forcefully and insistently. Penny began to wriggle and groan. Her eyes flew open, now, and she settled their gaze on the currently empty chair where she had sworn that Mot spent the night watching them. As Helen’s delicate fingers began probing and teasing her throbbing clit, Penny allowed herself to imagine that Mot was still seated there if indeed he had ever been. Despite her private admonitions, she found herself enjoying the imaginary eyes on her. She subtly let the blankets fall to her knees.

Exposed, she lolled her head against Helen’s shoulder and let herself make all the noise she’d suppressed the night before. Helen’s fingers penetrated inside, questing, searching her most sensitive places as she made her appreciation known. A tight sensation began in her belly, and she knew that she was soon to finish. She relaxed even further, groaning loudly, and let the feelings crash into her. She concluded, screaming Helen’s name. As she finished, Helen bit down on the meat between her neck and shoulder, sinking her teeth in hard. 

When she had ridden out her orgasm, Penny felt Helen’s fingers and teeth withdraw from her sensitive flesh. Still relaxing against Helen, she moaned softly and felt her grin widening each time the flapper kissed her cheek, her temple, her ear, and her jaw. 

“See?” Helen whispered again, “Not such a sin now, is it?”

“No,” Penny breathed, “I suppose not.”

They fell back into the bed and covered up, holding each other and kissing for more than an hour after. Eventually, Helen nuzzled into Penny’s neck and asked, “Ready for some food, Sheba?”

When Penny had affirmed that she was ready, they slid out of the sheets. Helen took Penny’s hand and led her to her little kitchenette. Still nude, they cooked eggs and bacon, and laughed and gossiped about nothing at all while they ate.

When they were done eating, Helen led Penny to her bathroom to reveal a massive copper tub on four clawed feet. In no time, it was filled with warm water and lavender-scented suds. As the two soaked, Penny experimentally prodded the bruises on her neck. It took little imagination to detect the shape of them. “You bit me,” Penny noted, “I have bruises.”

“Good,” responded Helen, “That way, you can poke them and remember me.” She slid her foot beneath Penny’s rear, grinding her shin against her. Penny had no resistance left for now and immediately melted into the treatment. After a few minutes of this, Helen moved from her side of the tub and positioned herself against Penny. Pressing her breasts against Penny’s, she began tenderly kissing her. 

Between long, deep kisses, Penny gasped, “We shouldn’t, we’ve done so much...” Despite her words, she returned the kisses and slid her position around to give Helen better access to her. “I have to think about what’s happened...”

“I’ll remind you,” Helen grinned, gently kissing the tender bruises at Penny’s neck. Penny gasped again, taking in Helen’s sweet scent.

The morning passed much like this, with little trysts breaking out all over Helen’s home, initiated by the insatiable flapper. At around lunchtime, they began talking about leaving the house. It was decided that they’d share one more meal and then head out.

They made stew together, following a recipe from a handwritten leather-bound book kept in the drawer. Several of the spices were entirely unfamiliar to Penny, but Helen had them all in stock. As they sat down to eat, still nude, they had fallen into a comfortable lull in conversation.

A few minutes of polite eating passed. Penny broke the silence, “This stew is good, I’ve never eaten anything quite like it...”

“Special recipe,” Helen winked. “Not all that different than the lipstick.”

Penny paused. “Lipstick? This isn’t going to make me sleep, is it?”

“I’m sure it would help, but it doesn’t put you all the way out. More like... it relaxes you and opens your mind up.” When Penny’s face drained of color, Helen giggled. “Don’t worry, I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. Bet ya want to see where it goes, though.”

“N-no...” Penny started, but chewed her bottom lip. Good girls don’t welsh on bets. That gave her pause. Obviously, that didn’t apply here, but good girls don’t welsh on bets. Did a dare count as a bet? Where was this insistence coming from? “Okay, I guess.”

Helen squealed, lightly clapping her hands together. “Good girl!” Penny smiled. “I’m almost done with my own soup, why don’t you get under the table and make it taste extra good?”

Without hesitation, Penny slipped beneath the table and crawled to the other side. She paused again, lips inches away from Helen’s smooth flesh. Why hadn’t she thought about-

Helen interrupted her, “Your breath feels good, girl, but I want you to lick now.” When Penny complied, she shifted on her seat and groaned. “Good girl.” Helen was sensitive and receptive with the near-constant sexual activity of the morning and shuttered into another mewling orgasm. “Good girl,” she repeated, gently gripping Penny’s head and pulling her halfway up to look into her smiling eyes. “Now, you’re gonna do all that again, a little harder, and everything you do to me, you’re gonna feel it. Good girls come together. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Call me Love.”

“Yes, Love”

“Good girls come together, right?”

“Yes, Love.”

“Say it.”

“Good girls come together, Love.”

“Good girl. Now lick.”

Penny buried her head between Helen’s thighs again. To her amazement, she could feel her own tongue lapping away at herself even as she pleased Love. As she felt Love’s excitement build, her own body reciprocated. Soon, they were both moaning. Love’s warm thighs clamped around Penny’s ears, and she clamped her own knees shut. The good girls came together.

They subsided into boneless panting, Penny’s head on Love’s lap with the flapper’s delicate hands running through her hair. “Good girl,” Love said, eliciting a smile. “Let’s get cleaned up and get dressed.”

In short order, they were dressed, made up, and on their way out. Penny set the agenda, first going to the pharmacy to place an order for myrrh. She marveled again as she passed the money over how easily it had fallen into her possession. Order placed, they found themselves in a space of time too soon to go to work but too late to make further plans, so they settled on a stroll through a nearby park. The stroll only lasted for a few minutes before they were seated on a park bench, stealing kisses in the waning daylight.

An idea came to Love, and she leaned back with a sly grin. “Bite me.”

“I... What?”

Love leaned back, craning her neck for full exposure. “Just a nibble.”

As if she was a starving cat, she pounced. As her teeth bruised the yielding flesh, she felt a sharp but pleasant sensation on her own neck, and withdrew. Looking with confusion at Love’s glittering eyes, she breathed, “What...”

“Everything you do to me, you’re gonna feel it. Right?”

“Yes, Love,” she responded, without thought.

“You’re a good girl. What do good girls do?”

“Smile,” she answered, grinning.

Love’s hand slipped from the bench between them to quest up under her own skirt. Anyone who took a good look would know precisely what she was doing, but a casual observer wouldn’t likely notice. “What else do good girls do?”

“Good girls c- they don’t welsh on bets.” Penny found herself flustered as Love’s excitement began to visibly mount, her hand’s motions implied beneath her skirt. Penny felt as though something were being locked into place, and only now thought that it might be something she may want to fight.

“Uh-huh,” Love moaned, biting her lip. “What else?” 

Penny felt the compulsion building. To stall for time, she mirrored Love’s hand beneath her own skirt and looked deeply into her eyes.

“What else do good girls do?”

“They... uhhh... good girls come together,” Penny finally answered, resistance collapsing. At that point, a man in his twenties happened by. Unlike other casual passers-by, he noticed their furtive moans and stopped to gawk. 

Love cut her eyes at him and let out a long, low moan. Penny reciprocated and reached across her body to hold Love’s free hand. They spasmodically clasped fingers as the good girls came together for their audience.

Giggling, they quickly rearranged their clothes and fled the scene. They were smiles and kisses as they prepared for work, and their elation continued in the rear of Mot’s car. 

As they left the car, the violence of the previous night flooded back to Penny. How had she forgotten? She killed a man, an officer. Muted, she let Love pull her through the door.

To Penny’s shock, the officers’ table was occupied again, with new faces but the same old uniforms. Mot approached, grinning. “Ladies! I have a special treat for you!”

“How did you cover up the...” Penny stopped herself, dropping her voice into a whisper. “Murders?”

“I’ve been a monster for a very long time, kitten,” Mot reminded her, his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “The sort of men that pretend to enforce the peace but are so easily bought with spirits, blackmail, and money think that they’re the worst thing they’ve ever met. They have to be pruned every now and then to remind them that they’re simply tools to be discarded. They’re also corruptive, everyone around them suffers ethical consumption. The whole of the government in this town is corrupt, and I have more money than the whole city combined.”

“What? From running this dive?”

He laughed. “Kitten, there was a time when I led armies of the dead against god-kings and plundered the wealth of nations. I run this place because I’m simply between plans.”

Penny shuffled uncomfortably, thinking back to her purchase. Hoping to change the subject, she asked, “What was the special treat?”

“You have to ask me for it,” Mot teased, clasping his hands behind his back. 

“Can...” Penny started, hesitantly. “Can I have the special treat.”

“Say please.”

“Can I please have the special treat?”

“You don’t ask a man’s mouth, kitten,” Mot admonished. “When asking for something, you look them in the eyes. Be bold.”

“You know I can’t,” Penny spat, hatred welling up in her. “I won’t.”

“Then I suppose that I will simply have to give the full... force... of the gift.”

Penny looked at Love with rising alarm. The flapper was grinning blankly at Mot, her chest rising and falling with evident excitement. If she had ever had any resistance to Mot, it was long gone. “Fine,” she growled. Steeling her mind, she put up as many mental walls as she could. Penny finally turned to Mot, still looking at his mouth. “Will you please give me the special treat, Mot?” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze.

She was able to keep herself from falling in. She focused on putting as much spite and hatred into her glare as she could. She hated Master with all of her heart. No, that wasn’t right, but she couldn’t exactly put her finger on why. Her heart skipped a beat, and she focused on the wall again. It was a brick wall, with white mortar and solid red bricks. Ivy crept up it, slowly but somehow instantly. It sunk its roots in, a crack appeared. She shoved the wall away from her mind and focused on her actual surroundings. She still stared into the voids of Mot’s eyes, but her own were unfocused, half-closed. Her body swayed slightly, and while she wasn’t quite numb, the sensations on her skin didn’t quite feel real either. He was talking, but it was difficult to follow his words. The deep timbre of his voice rattled in her chest more than in her ears. He was saying something about his hand as it drifted slowly towards her face. She knew that whatever it was was important, but she couldn’t have said why. His palm brushed her cheek, and she focused on her wall again.

It was faded, the brick crumbling and the ivy obscuring most of it. The crack was wider, and deep. The crack was deep, and growing wider as Master’s voice echoed in Penny’s mind. It became broader and deeper, and Penny looked into it. Suddenly she was in the crack, and she felt more than saw or heard the wall finally giving way, crumbling to dust as she fell deeper into the Master’s darkness. The ice-cold palm on her cheek was the only sensation she felt as she drifted down further. The Master’s voice was there, around her, in her, but she didn’t know what he was saying. Only that she wanted him to keep saying it forever.

Then, she was rushing, her slowly beating heart sped up until it thundered. It threatened to drown out Master’s words. She focused, trying to hear and feel the words again, but she rushed back into herself. Just as she landed, her eyes flying open and still locked on Master’s, he knotted his hand in her hair and pulled her towards him with one tectonic command, “SLEEP!”

She obeyed, falling back into the insensate darkness.


	8. Good Girls

Penny’s first sensation was a tightness in the back of her neck. When she opened her eyes, her chin was resting on her collarbone. Lolling her head, she looked around at her surroundings. She could hear the faint strains of the jazz band through the floor as her eyes adjusted to the darkness around her. She was in a well-apportioned room that appeared to be on the main floor. The last time she had been inside the house, it had appeared abandoned, run-down. Now, it was fully furnished, clean, and decorated. 

She sat in a high backed reading chair next to a crackling fireplace. Her arms were bound to the armrests, the binding gently tied at her wrists and wrapped like a bracer to her elbow where it was also gently but firmly tied. From her wrists to her elbows, her arms were entirely immobile. In front of her was a table covered in various implements of unknown purpose. Some of them looked medieval, and some of them seemed positively phallic. Before she could puzzle out the purpose, someone made a sound in a chair opposite her. 

Love was tied in much the same way as her, similarly tied to an identical chair. She was undressed to her laces, and Penny realized that they had both been stripped. “Love?” Penny asked, her voice sounding small and weak in the large room. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, Penny,” Love breathed, excitedly nibbling on her bottom lip. “This is gonna be the berries!”

Penny suppressed a fearful sob. Mot, sharply dressed in his suit, entered into her field of view. “Kitten, there’s hardly any cause for that. I told you I would not touch you unless you begged for it. Helen here has done me a favor, and I must reward her appropriately.”

“You tied me to a chair!” Penny hissed. “I didn’t beg for that.”

“I didn’t tie you to anything, kitten.” When she looked with confusion and alarm first to Mot and then to Penny, all she received in response was sly grins. “Let’s begin,” he continued, running his fingers along the neatly organized equipment. He appeared to be gauging Love’s reaction. When he was apparently satisfied with the excited heaving of her chest, he settled on a decision and took up a riding crop.

“What do good girls do?” Mot asked, his deep voice soft but commanding.

“Smile,” they both answered in unison. Love grinned, and Penny found herself mimicking the expression.

“What are you playing at, Mas... Mot?”

“I wasn’t talking to you, kitten,” Mot chastised gently. “I was talking to my Helen. She’s smiling because she’s a good girl. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

“Yes, Master!” 

“Good girl.” Her smile widened, as did Penny’s. He raised Love’s chin with the riding crop. He trailed the leather tip down her throat and over her collarbone while she writhed. “What else do good girls do?”

“Good girls come together,” the answered, and Penny started feeling a tickling on the skin of her chest. As the touch trailed down over her breasts and stomach, she realized that she was feeling the crop’s progress on Helen’s skin. 

“What...” she started, interrupting herself as her own breathing matched Helen’s excited reactions. She found herself as eager as Helen, and Master hadn’t even touched her.

“Good girls,” Mot grinned, smugly, and the sensation solidified. He pressed the riding crop firmly against Love’s panties. Penny felt the pressure as acutely as Love did, and gasped in disbelief. She clamped her knees together, but she was still utterly vulnerable to Mot’s intentions without Love doing the same. 

He brushed the crop slowly from the crease between Love’s inner thigh to the back of her knee, repeating the action twice for each leg until both girls were squirming messes. Love’s knees naturally sagged together as the feelings intensified towards the outer edge of her tolerance. Without warning, Mot lashed out with the crop, leaving a stinging mark on Helen’s inner thigh. Both girls squealed and separated their knees.

Mot trailed the crop back up, being gentle as a butterfly. He wordlessly twitched out a strike on Love’s ribs, on her breasts, and on her hips. Each assault was met with a feminine gasp and a reflexive jerk until the purpose became apparent; the girls sat prim and upright with perfect posture. Their eyes were half-closed with silent, needy pleas, and their breasts rose and fell rapidly.

“What a pretty picture,” Master mused, with a throaty chuckle. He sauntered over to the table and made a show of choosing another tool. He decided, lifting something that looked like a weapon. From a long leather handle, a bush of rawhide straps erupted from the top, each themselves topped by paintbrush-like bristles. “Now that you’re sitting properly, like Good Girls,” he paused while they smiled at him, “It’s time to get started.” He approached Love, taking his time. He started at Love’s calves, flicking his wrist back and forth, so the leather straps slapped against her skin with a metronome-like slapping sound. He trailed up her leg, occasionally pausing to admire the patchwork of red marks he left in his wake. While he surveyed his work, he gently trailed the straps over the marks. Love’s skin was clearly sensitive there, and she mewled and whined with abandon. She writhed, but she never broke her corrected posture.

Penny, who had been experiencing all of it with Love, sobbed, “Please, Mas... Mo... Master...” she bit her lip, trying to force herself to feel angry, to feel shame or horror. All she could feel was need.

She couldn’t see his face, but she could see his ears perk up as he grinned down at Love. He continued his progress, assaulting up her hips, her core, and her shoulders. He broke his progress to gently trail his straps over her flesh again. Love was clearly a mess, half out of her mind, and strangely relaxed considering the assault on her senses. Penny herself felt the same. It was difficult to concentrate. She felt need, but also a sense of being in the present. There was nothing before, nothing after, just the phantom sensations of those infernal leather strips and the tickling brushes on her untouched skin.

“You going to let kitten be a better girl than you? She’s ready to beg, my dear. Are you ready to beg?”

“Yes, Master,” Love groaned, her voice half of a whisper. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please make me come, please?”

“Good Girl,” Master growled. They smiled. “What do Good Girls do?”

“Good Girls come together!” they both cried, overcome.

“Good Girls,” he laughed and renewed his assaults. The flogger flicked across Helen’s breasts, slapped around her hips, and into her groin. With every slap, Love gasped and mewled, with mounting ecstasy. With an expert hand, Master flipped his tool around and slipped the smooth bulb of the handle down the front of Love’s lacy panties. He twisted, leveraged, and turned it with practiced efficiency, gripping Love by her hair and forcing her to gaze at his face. Unable to move beyond slight twitches of her knees and her curling toes, Love very loudly and obviously finished. Mot didn’t relent, only intensifying his efforts. Love had barely stopped screaming before she came again, her face flushing a bright scarlet where sweat and tears had run her makeup and revealed skin. Penny fared no better, staring in disbelief as the phantom rod ground and assaulted her.

Finally, on the last peak of ecstatic joy, Master pulled Love’s hair back and right, exposing her neck. He unceremoniously lunged down and bit her, eliciting another ragged scream of pleasure. Penny couldn’t see the bite, but she knew what was happening by the expression of complete, contented surrender on Love’s face over Master’s shoulder.

When he was satisfied, he withdrew his tool and his teeth and returned the former to the table. He picked up a small jar of lotion and took his time examining it. Love sat across from Penny, knees apart, perfect posture slumped with satisfied exhaustion. Her red panties revealed a sizeable wet spot, and Penny knew that her own showed the same. The expression on Love’s face was haunting and beautiful, abject surrender and admiration. Even the two livid marks on her throat and the twin trails of blood that ran down her collarbone to soak into her bra didn’t mar the scene.

Satisfied with his theatrics, Master returned to Love and raised her chin with a single forefinger. He used his little finger to scoop out some ointment and rubbed it into the bite marks, and the bleeding immediately ceased.

A chuckle rattled around from deep inside his chest again, and he kissed Love on the forehead. He stood up and finally looked at Penny again. “Happy with your treat, kitten?”

Penny tried to glare, but the deep, tiring echoes of the last several minutes muted it as much as the trailing mascara and the slackness in her jaw. “Untie me,” she tried to order him, but it came out as a weak, half-hearted plea. Good grief, did she enjoy being tied up? 

“I told you before, kitten, I didn’t tie you up. I won’t touch you until you beg me to.” He gently tugged one string of rope at Love’s elbow, and the whole bracer unraveled. Penny immediately felt the release of her own arm and looked down with amazement. There were no ropes, though she could feel them trapping her left arm. That was also released when Helen’s other bond was slipped, and Master swaggered towards the door. “I’ll leave the aftercare to you two, I have a business to run. Tub’s in the other room, clean up and get to work.”

“Yes Master,” the girls answered, panting. Penny stiffened slightly in alarm.

She relaxed into an exhausted smile when Mot simply intoned, “Good Girls,” and strode out.


	9. Sins and Sensibility

The two had showered, reapplied their makeup, and recovered before seeking out their missing clothes. They were so thoroughly sated that there was very little of the day’s earlier touching and groping. They did giggle, however, and talk about nothing. They broke up this casual conversations with Love commenting on Master’s ‘treat’ while Penny feigned indifference. 

This continued until they slipped downstairs to the speakeasy. As they did every night, the jazz band was putting their heart and soul into the music. They had no dedicated singer, just a hornblower who broke up his wild blasting to shout out words and phrases meant to frame the context of the song. This song was a venue favorite, called “Vamp”. The horn was played deeper, almost in the German style, and the drummer used the base drum fervently enough to be dripping sweat. Interspersed in the frantic wall of sounds, the hornblower shouted out refrains such as, “Blonde curls, short stack, eyes blue, heart black!” before returning to the instrument. Penny reflected that she had developed a taste for jazz. 

She looked over to Master, who smirked at her as he leaned on the counter, conversing with a patron who was clearly too drunk to follow the conversation. Penny felt her hackles rise and marched over to the vampire. 

“Kitten!” he exclaimed, grinning as if he was surprised to see her. “Some of our regulars have been asking after you two. You’re almost as popular as the house band.”

“Master,” Penny frowned at him. “I mean... Master.” That still wasn’t right. 

“Don’t worry your head about it, kitten. Good Girls smile, you know.”

Penny growled in frustration past her sweet smile and turned to the bartender. “Do you have an order?”

“Kitten,” Master admonished, “Do you even know his name?”

“What? I...”

“You don’t!” Master laughed at her. “That is very rude. You should have introduced yourself.”

Frustrated by the brief flush of shame that his words should not have elicited in her, she turned to the bartender. “I’m Penny-”

“Rudeness is a Sin,” Master interrupted her, emphasizing the last word. Penny gasped and leaned against the counter, clamping her knees together as she felt a sudden echo of earlier ecstasies. “Finish apologizing, please.”

“I... I’m sorry, sir,” Penny groaned, her knuckles going white where she gripped the counter. “I’m P... I’m Penny... Penny Du-Oh!” She finished loudly. “Penny Dutch!”

“Good Girl,” Master whispered, not even looking at her anymore. She smiled, and just like that, the echoes were gone. “Well, back to work.” He leaned down to whisper something in the drunk woman’s ear before heading backstage. She stared with open envy at Penny.

“I’m Jack Bratu,” the bartender laughed, winking at her. “I don’t get involved in his little games very often, so I’m sorry to have been cause of your uh... distress.” He snickered. Then, he poured her a glass of something almost clear. “Want some advice?”

“Do I need it?” Penny asked evasively. She took the proffered drink and tipped it back. It burned pleasantly. “I did need that, so I’m all ears.”

“Mot likes it when you don’t learn your lesson the first time. If you’re looking forward to a repeat lesson, then you’re fine. If you’re looking to avoid getting stared at by everyone just as the jazz band pauses, then I’d say go introduce yourself to them.”

Penny looked casually behind her and realized that she had, in fact, projected her ‘punishment’ vocally across the room. Every table seemed to be discussing it, laughing scandalously and glancing at her. She then reexamined the three-piece band. “Master doesn’t care if we mingle with them?”

“Hm?” Jack hummed, as if surprised by the question. “Oh! Alright, so... Mot’s been around for I don’t know how long. He doesn’t go in for those Gobineau horsefeathers. Make nice with the band, they’re all swell fellas, they got my voucher. Watch out for Jake, though, he can be a handful.” He chuckled at some private joke and placed three full glasses on a tray. He waved her off towards one of the tables, and she complied.

Penny realized that she had a decision to make. She had placed her order and secured shelter. The sort of money that the huntress had made on her first night was sufficient for her needs now. However, Master knew that she intended to kill him, so acting as though she no longer needed the money might tip him off that she was almost ready to make the attempt. Love was already at it, letting an obviously interested woman whisper a suspiciously large order directly into her ear. Penny straightened her shoulders and played the game.

Her first stop was a table of three young men. She couldn’t tell if they were regulars. The university men were all very fashionable and therefore looked similar to one another. For their part, they were appreciative of the view. They didn’t indicate any recognition of her, so she treated them as if they were new. She flirted and giggled, even borrowing some vernacular from Love before flouncing off. She left the table with twenty extra dollars in her hand. 

There was some part of her that was frustrated at how much she enjoyed playing this particular game. Smiling, flirting, and even the vapid giggling kept her grounded in the moment, unburdened by the past and unconcerned for the future. She felt that she understood Love a little better.

The evening continued this way for several hours, until the band finally fled the stage to take a breather and wash their faces. Penny disentangled herself from the students’ table and rushed backstage. The three men were breathlessly laughing and joking as Penny approached. They paused cautiously when she drew near.

“Hello,” she greeted, “I’m Penny. Penny Dutch.”

“We don’t use our last names here,” the singer answered, shrugging. “At some point, Mot’s going to move on, and we won’t be protected anymore.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” she answered, looking around. “I guess I’m just Penny.”

“We’re Jake,” the singer answered, grinning.”

“You’re all Jake?”

“That we are!” the drummer laughed, and the other two joined in.

Unsure of how to respond, Penny bid them goodbye and turned to the main floor. “Well, that explains Jack’s little joke,” she grumbled, before squealing as a hand hooked around her shoulder and dragged her between the curtains. “What!?” she gasped before realizing that she was leaning against Master. The long arms and stable, silent chest made her feel safe, though she knew that she was anything but. She leaned into the grip a touch too long before struggling to break free. Master released her with a quiet but resonant chuckle. “Master, what are you doing?” She tried to make it sound like a demand, but it came out as a breathless plea.

“I see you’ve learned from your sins,” he noted, and her knees clamped together again. This time, he didn’t give her immediate reprieve. “We’ll have to work on that. I prefer it when a lesson takes a few repetitions.”

She only whined in response, gripping the curtain with one hand to stay upright.

“I can make it better for you,” he noted. “I can make your Sins as deep as you want them.”

She whined again, sagging against the curtain. Her breath was ragged, but she managed to pant out, “I-I’m no-OT! Looking in... in your eyes...”

He laughed again, “No, kitten, all you need do is fall into my arms.” He held his hands out, expectantly. “Unless you think you can handle the burden of your sins by yourself.” This final time, she moaned, and her knees refused to hold her weight entirely. The throbbing waves of ecstasy were too much for her, and she finally forced her legs back underneath of herself so that she could stumble against him. Instantly, he enfolded her again, raking her scalp with iron-hard fingernails. “Good girl,” he intoned. As the vapid grin dimpled her cheeks, the wonderful discomfort of uninvited pleasure faded away. Unconsciously, she buried her face into his chest and sighed.

After several heartbeats, he gently pushed her away. As the full situation dawned on her, she stopped resisting and stood upright, blushing furiously. “Play your mind games, Master,” she hissed, eyes flashing. “I won’t fall for your tricks in the end.” She looked down and realized that he was still holding her hand.

“Of course you won’t,” he responded, his voice dripping with fake placation. “But first, and I know that you’ll indulge me, the band has asked for a longer break this evening. I’m going to have you entertain.” He pulled her towards the stage.

She tried to protest, “No, I don’t think I can! All I’ve ever sung was on Sunday, and that’s not the kind of thing this crowd wants to hear!”

“Nonsense, it’s not about talent, it’s about confidence,” he flashed a smile at her. “Just remember, the men out there like a Doxy.”

Penny’s breath caught in her throat as the sense of the present overcame her. Like waiting tables or the flirty, bubbly persona she donned for the crowd, her fears of the future drained out of her with her sense of obligation to the past. It was just here, now, and beautiful. The lights shined on her brightly, and she could only see the crowd by vague silhouettes. She didn’t remember exactly where she was or what she was doing there, but she knew that she was supposed to be entertaining.

“Heya, folks!” she beamed at the shadows. Every eye was on her, now, and the excitement built up in her chest. “I’m Kitten, and this is Master’s Place!” she gasped in joy at the smattering of applause. “I’m givin’ the house band a break, but I bet they’ll feel better faster if you let them hear you!” She grinned like a Good Girl as the shadows cheered. “I’m a bit of a dead hoofer without my Love, so I can’t cut it up here, but maybe I can belt a little for you.”

She started singing one of the band’s regular songs. She didn’t really think about it or much of anything, really, but she had apparently absorbed the song one of the several dozen times she’d heard it. Being jazz, it didn’t have a set tune, and the band had basically been improvising the musical accompaniment. Singer Jake had always kept the words the same, and Kitten felt free to improvise.

  


“ _ I find my joy in the dark corners, _

_ I see the starlight in blackest eyes _

_ I hear the beat of one heart for two _

_ I’ll never miss the bluest skies _ ”

  


Kitten grinned as the crowd cheered her on, reveling in their joy and their attention. Someone shouted for her to show more skin, and she beamed even wider. As kitten continued, she slowly worked the buttons on her dress. A brief flash of horror shuttered through her as she realized that she would have to interact with this crowd after and endure their leers. She smiled again, thinking of their lustful stares, just for her! Then, she forgot about the future entirely and giggled at the silly thoughts in her head.

  


“ _ There is one who owns my heart _

_ And another that owns my soul. _

_ But my body is up for grabbin’ _

_ When the darkness swallows me whole!” _

She was breathing heavily now, not just from belting the words. Excitement thrilled through her as she let her unbuttoned dress slide from her shoulders. Her lacy panties and bra glittered in the stage lights, and she had started to glisten with sweat. She felt like an angel, displaying a halo.

  


“There’s _ no reason to worry _

_ You got no reason to fret _

_ I want to get everyone dancin’ _

_ I’m gonna make all of you sweat!” _

Kitten reached behind her and unclasped her bra. Hugging it with one arm against her breasts, she bit her lip and made eyes at the crowd, twisting her hips and body to give them a good show. “What was that?” she taunted, innocent sweetness permeating her voice, “You wanna see them?” the crowd cheered. She’d never heard them this excited before, and once again, a flush of pride and vanity rocked her frame. “Beg for it, boys!”

The crowd erupted with demands and mock pleas for her to drop the bra. A few voices rose above the crowd with even more lewd offers. As a reward for their attention, she finally raised both hands above her head, wiggling her hips playfully to thunderous applause.

Then she heard Master’s voice as he strode back onto the stage. “Well, that was a good show, kitten!” he congratulated. “Most girls would be Shamed.”

At the last word, full awareness returned to Penny. She remembered everything, and she was fully aware of the crowd. Worse, she was fully aware that her hands were in the air, clutching her bra, and her bare breasts were on full display. Blushing deeper than she ever had, she tried covering herself with one hand and replacing her bra with the other.

“I think that ship has sailed,” Master laughed, “Don’t look so glum, remember that Good Girl smile.” She grinned, her hands pausing in their fumbling.

“Please,” she whispered, “Not in front of all of these people.”

He looked out at the crowd with a theatrically conspiratorial smile. By their cheers, they thought this was just some unusual but enjoyable skit they were putting on. “Say something nice, kitten.”

“What?” Penny asked, taken off guard.

“You were a bit rude when we first met. You are here to kill me, after all. The least you could do is to say something nice.”

“You... uh,” Penny wracked her brain. Panic made the effort difficult, and she looked between him and the shadowy crowd with rising terror. “You’re tall.”

“Oh,” he mocked with another smug look a the crowd. “I didn’t know you liked them tall, kitten. Lucky you.” He stretched to his full height, easily six and a half feet. “Go on.”

“You’re... very powerful?”

“That’s just the facts, kitten. Say something nice about me.”

“I... You... uh...” Penny was on the verge of sobbing.

“Beg for it,” Master demanded, crossing his arms and examining his fingernails.

“Please fuck me, Master!” Penny blurted out and clamped her hand over her mouth. What just happened?

“I meant beg me not to make you scream on stage,” Master noted with fake surprise. “Being as naked as you are in front of all these people would be a Sin!”

Her knees clamped together, and she grabbed herself with both hands, clamping her thighs around her fingers as she sank to her knees.

“Kitten!” Master roared the scandalized word over the crowd’s racy howls, “I said it would be a Sin! Get ahold of yourself before you Sin again!”

With every repeat of the word, she erupted in fresh moans and squirms. Her bra lay next to the crumpled heap of her clothing, forgotten in the display.

“Please, Master!” she begged.

“Please what, kitten?”

She put a hand on the stage in front of her as she threatened to fall over. She didn’t even know what she was begging for anymore. “Please,” she mewled weakly.

“I do believe that it is a Sin for you to enjoy this so much, kitten!” the crowd laughed as she gasped and fell to her side. “I tell you what, I will give you the reprieve if you promise to dream of me. Can you promise that, kitten?”

“Whuh...”

“Can you promise, Sinner?”

She cried out and put a hand over her face, hiding a little of her shame. Unfortunately, she blocked out some of the stage lighting and could see the crowd’s faces. They were in rapt attention of her, no longer cheering but wholly immersed in the display. At the front, just at the edge of the stage, Kitten saw Love gazing with undisguised desire. “I prom-promise!” she moaned, flopping over onto her back. She was a little less exposed to the crowd, mostly they’d see her brown tresses, but she was fully exposed to Master. “I’ll dream of you, master!”

“Good girl,” he chuckled, holding his hand near her face. 

Unconsciously, she brushed her dimpled cheek against his palm. “You’re a mess. I’ll have you cleaned up.” She had just enough time to wonder what that meant when he stroked her cheek up to her temple, raking his nails into her hair and knotting his fingers in her hair. Gently but firmly, he lifted her head off the stage and brought his face close enough to hers that she could feel the rush of air as he spoke. She didn’t hear what he said, because she was staring again into the darkness.

There was a spinning this time, and the darkness was less black and more the insensate darkness of the blind. She felt the sight leave her, but a comfortable, chilling numbness spread from her eyes through her head. When she could no longer feel her head, the only thoughts she felt were somehow both light and fluffy as well as leaden and sluggish. Her mind was without substance, but somehow heavy as well, and it sank down deep into her body. As her awareness fell past her neck, she felt a flash of pride that the Master would soon gift that throat with a hungry kiss. Then, the sensation was gone. She drifted past her naked breasts, suddenly aware that they had slowed their heaving breaths in favor of a steady, dreamy rise and fall. Then, she felt nothing and sank deeper. Her stomach felt a rush of butterflies, echoes of stage fright, and the excitement of her Sins. These didn’t go away, they followed her down, deeper and farther down.

As she passed the pleasant mess Master had made of her panties, she shook with the memory of her little show. This, too, faded, and she was left with her thighs. She writhed, feeling her knees brush against each other. Just before this awareness disappeared, she felt a hand scoop up her legs. Then, she was in her feet, and she was aware that one of her heels had fallen off. Then she was in her toe, and then she was gone.


	10. The Magic Words

Kitten kept her promise. She dreamed of Master all night. At first, her dreams were memories, disjointed moments of their conscious struggle for her mind. They became something else, eventually, tattered remnants of memory she had no access to when awake. Memories overtook her of Master whispering in her ear. Master told her that Good Girls smile, Good Girls want to look good, Good Girls love being watched. Good Girls come together. His words had soaked into her, they had remade her to Master’s tastes, and she had loved every minute of it. Her memories of Master’s little triggers were foggier, more freshly obfuscated for her. His control horrified and excited her. Even as she dreamed, she felt him whispering more into her mind.

She dreamed then of the future. She dreamed of his touch, caressing her while Love watched. She dreamed of every depraved thing she’d ever been exposed to in her sheltered existence. She felt a flush of shame and regret that she wasn’t experienced enough to fantasize properly, sure that Master’s depravity far outpaced the secret thoughts she’d hidden over her life.

Penny woke up nude in Love’s bed. She felt rested, refreshed, and aroused. The noon sun drifted in through the closed curtains, and she stretched. Penny enjoyed the feeling of silk sliding over her bare skin.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Love noted with a grin from the door. “Too bad, I was looking forward to waking you up with breakfast.”

“You can come over and have breakfast if you want,” Penny laughed, sliding her leg to the side, so she was exposed to her mid-thigh.

Love laughed. “Little Kitten wants to play? Aren’t you worried that would be a Sin?” Penny groaned, struggling with the sudden sensations flooding her.

“That’s not... fair.”

“All’s fair for Love and Master,” she tittered and threw herself on the bed, lying on her side and propping up on an elbow. “Now Sin for me, Sin harder!”

Kitten felt her mind threatening to melt under the assault. She knotted her hands in the silk sheets and rubbed her knees together. An idea struck her, and she grinned, biting her lip, “Just... oohhhh... just remember, Good Girls come together!”

Love gasped, her eyes going wide. “Oh, you brat!” she moaned,  collapsing into the pillows. Her voice rose to a sing-song tease, “Good thing you can’t come unless you know the trigger!”

Kitten huffed, rubbing her thighs together. She slipped her hand down with an unfocused, defiant smirk and began to rub slowly but fervently at her clit. She quickly felt the pent up ecstasy prepare to crash in on her, but she couldn’t quite push herself over the edge. “Whuh?” she groaned in confusion. She doubled her efforts, but still could only make her situation more desperate. 

The edging was almost as much torture to Love, who was obviously enjoying the show. She rolled onto her back, running her hands over her own body and laughing with the morning’s joy.

“Please,” Kitten mewled, “Please let me... Ohhhh....”

“No, Kitten,” Love gasped, fixing her eyes on her companion. “It’s not me. You just have to repeat, ‘I obey’.”

“I obey...” Kitten whispered, and she could feel the block weakening.

“Louder!” Love groaned, taking Kitten’s hand in her own.

“I obey,” Kitten moaned, and she could feel even closer. The joy-filled her body, her mind a void, and her every sensation drowned out. “I obey!” she called, her whole body tensing. “I obey! I obey! I obey! I obeeeeyyy!” she chanted, becoming nothing until she was a blank, mute, and shaking. Her body quivered, her mouth gaped in a now silent cry, and her hand clutching Love’s, who was going through the same experience with her. The Good Girls came together.

After an unknown amount of time, awareness crept back into them. Love recovered first, rolling onto Penny and draping herself across the insensate huntress. Her tender kisses brought Penny back, and the two lay together for a time. Penny lolled her head over to the window and saw with some shock that the sun was already going down.

With plenty of kisses and giggles between them, they bathed, ate, and prepared for work. Penny wondered where the time had gone as she opened her wardrobe. She cocked her head. There was a light fog over her mind. Still, she distinctly remembered not having a wardrobe, and she definitely didn’t have this many clothes. However, she did know that this was her wardrobe and that it was filled with her clothes. She briefly marveled at those clothes. They weren’t just her uniforms anymore. They were all slightly as scandalous, if not more, with short skirts and plunging necklines. An assortment of stockings and heeled shoes lined one side of the door, and jewelry lined the other.

“Ohh! Presents!” squealed Love from across the room. Penny looked past her door and looked at her lover in front of her own wardrobe, which was similarly outfitted. “Oh, Kitten, you have to put on your collar!”

Penny hesitated. At the top of the jewelry display, a soft black leather choker took pride of place. She picked it up and looked at it with some trepidation. It had a red opal clasp carved with an odd symbol lacquered in glossy black, a square diamond over an x with curled tips. “What is this?” she asked, pointing the icon out.

“That’s Master’s mark!” Love giggled, as if the question were unreasonable. She was putting on her own choker and closed the clasp. “You better put it on, I don’t think this is for our benefit.”

After a few moments, Penny reached behind her neck and draped the soft leather over her skin. The fit was snug, but not uncomfortably so, and the material rapidly warmed next to her skin. She felt as if something had changed, but she wasn’t sure why. She stroked the opal at her throat. “What do you mean, ‘not for our benefit’? You mean for Master’s?”

“No,” Love responded, still dressing. “Master says his mark is to lay claim, in case others are around.”

“Other vampires?” Penny asked, in alarm.

“Well, yeah,” Love rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t want to get nibbled on without permission, wouldya?” She giggled.

Penny reached into the wardrobe for one of her uniforms, and her knuckles brushed against something odd. Pushing the clothes aside, she saw a red underbust corset draped in black lace hanging on the back. She blushed and quickly pulled her uniform out of the wardrobe and dressed. They applied their makeup shoulder to shoulder, and Penny paused, looking at her reflection. She looked like a particularly wanton flapper. When had her hair been styled? It hung in heavy ringlets, and clearly had been getting treated. It was the healthiest it had ever been. “Love?” she asked.

“Yes, Kitten?”

“How long has it been since I was on stage?”

“The first time?” Love asked, applying rouge to her knees.

“I guess.”

“About a week. You’ve been putting on a show every night. Master, have you forgetting?”

“I guess,” she said again. Her voice was numb and flat.

“He likes your ‘first time on stage’ jitters. You’re so cute when you’re nervous.”

A week. She’d lost a week. Master had that much control over her. Her heart raced with fear and excitement. She shook her head. It was fear, she was losing. How exciting.

They were on the road moments later. The trip was quiet, Penny chewed her lip and absently fingered her ringlets. It was evident that she was running out of time. Did she have these thoughts every night for the last seven? She couldn’t have, or she would have taken action. Tonight, she was sure that Master’s control had slipped a little. That meant she’d have to play the silly airhead, living in the moment, if she didn’t want him to reassert his control.

They arrived, and the atmosphere was immediately different than other nights. There were men in suits standing around the yard, vigilantly watching the night. As the girls approached, one of them shined a clunky silver flashlight on each in turn. He seemed focused on their collars. “Gehen henein,” he ordered gruffly. By the motion of his flashlight, he was encouraging them to head in, so they complied.

“Were those... vampires?” Penny asked in hushed tones.

Love shrugged, “No, I don’t think so. Not unless someone’s making a bunch of blood-sucking goons.”

They entered into the basement barroom to find that only two of the tables were occupied. One held several suited men with one similarly dressed woman, casually playing cards and chatting quietly. Seated at the other was Master and a small blonde woman. Draped across the table between them was a fashionable brunette stripped to her waist. She stared dreamily at the ceiling with a tired smile on her face. Though her throat was exposed and ready, it was unmarred. The band played frantically on the stage, a strange tension in their movements. They looked terrified.

Master turned and grinned at the two as they entered. “Girls! Welcome! Private party today, I expect you to be Good Girls, best behavior!”

They both grinned back at him and nodded. Master’s companion rolled her eyes. “I see you’re still playing games.”

“What’s immortality without a little diversion?” he chuckled. “You’re always too serious. This is a place of merriment, so be merry!”

She rolled her eyes again. “You going to have your toys serve my men, or are they going to stay over there, grinning like broken dolls?”

He smirked crookedly at her. “I wanted to introduce them first. Helen Troy, my pupil, is on the left, and right there is Penny Dutch.”

“Dutch?” the visitor noted, surprise touching her voice. “Interesting.” She spared a smile at the two girls, one that didn’t touch her sparkling, ice-blue eyes. “My name is Mary. If you would kindly serve my men over there, I would be grateful. I have business to discuss with your Master.”

“He’s not my Master!” Penny blurted out.

Mary’s fixed her with a flat look. She mounted a cigarette on a holder and struck a match. “Really? What’s his name?”

“Master,” Penny responded defiantly.

Her confidence broke, and she continued, “I mean, Master. His name isn’t Master, it’s Master.” She growled in frustration.

“Go serve my men, schätzchen. I have things I wish to speak to you about later.”

Penny didn’t say any more. She simply approached the table to take an order. These men didn’t grope her. They didn’t swat her rear or respond to her bubbly affect. They simply ordered beers in thick German accents and continued playing their game. As she served their requests, she found herself growing frustrated over their lack of interest. That itself annoyed her, as the slatternly persona was supposed to be a front, not something she enjoyed. After satisfying their orders, she maneuvered herself near the two at the other table to listen in. Much to her disappointment, they weren’t speaking in English.

She started visualizing her final stroke against Master. She would throw the myrrh into his face, preferably while he still had that smirk. She wanted to watch that smirk melt away. She wanted to see that more than seeing it drift slowly towards her neck, fangs caressing her skin before finally sinking in, his firm rod pistoning in and out of her without mercy.

Penny shook herself out of her fantasy with alarm. Love was watching her intently, a small smile playing on her lips. Penny realized that the conversation had stopped. She had no idea how long she’d been standing there, but her legs had begun to ache, so it had been longer than she’d like. Master and Mary were both looking expectantly at her, waiting for a response. Giving up entirely on pretending to have been paying attention, she simply said, “I’m sorry, what?”

It was Mary that spoke up, “I asked what you thought of us?”

Penny suddenly felt danger creeping up her spine and over her scalp. “What do you mean?”

“Vampires, schätzchen, what do you think of vampires?”

“I’m sure I don’t know...”

Mary’s eyes flashed with an inner blue light, capturing Penny’s slack-jawed attention. There was a tone to her voice when she interrupted Penny, one that she didn’t so much hear as feel. “Tell us the truth.”

“I... no...” Penny started to back away.

“Oh,” Mary laughed, a sweet, musical sound. “This one has heart! I see why you’re playing with her, Mot.” She turned back to Mary, rising out of her seat and casually approaching her. Even with her long heels, the little blonde vampire only came up to Penny’s nose. She tried to avoid looking at those eyes again, panic tinging her face as she cast about for help. A delicate hand gripped her chin and forced her to look down as those eyes flashed again. “What do you think of Mot?”

“I...” Penny gasped. “He’s a monster.”

“What do you want to do to that monster?”

“I want to kill him,” Penny tried to grit her teeth to prevent the words from coming out.

“Hear that, Mot?” Mary laughed, “You’re losing your touch.”

Master was grinning and leaning back on his chair. “She’s a work in progress. I’ll finish her off when she begs me to.”

“Right,” Mary nodded. “Well, our agreement requires a toast. I want her.”

Master leaned forward, making a broad gesture at the half-naked form in front of him. “I acquired this one because she was your most preferred vintage. Now you want to change your mind?”

“I’ll take her with me. It’s a long trip back to Bavaria. For a toast, I want to share this one.”

Penny tried to protest, but the vampire’s eyes flashed one more time as she softly shushed her, and she was unable to form more than a weak little groan.

“That is interesting,” Master mused. “What do you say, Kitten, want your first nibble to be two of the most powerful creatures you’ve ever met?”

“N... no... Please.”

“Such inhospitable behavior would be a Sin, you know.”

Penny gasped, eyes unable to leave Mary’s as they filled with lusty need. “Please...”

“You heard the little Sinner,” Master told Mary in mock resignation. “She doesn’t think she should take part in such Sinful behavior.” He stood and stalked over to Mary’s side. “Although... if the Sinner wants relief, she knows what she has to say. You told her, Helen?”

“I did this afternoon, Master,” Love noted with a little whimper of her own.

“Go on, Kitten. You know you want to.”

“I... I...” Penny gasped, squirming pitifully.

“You’ve been so strong,” Master stated, “You have been a good fighter, but it was never a fair fight. It was wrong for you elders to send you here to face me, but you can finally enjoy your failure once you surrender.”

“I...” She tore her gaze away from the blue eyes, looked at Jack behind the bar, who was dutifully staring down at the counter. She looked at Love, who was almost as desperate as she. She let her eyes roll back before drifting closed. “I obey...” the block was instantly gone, and she had a quietly sobbing orgasm in front of everyone. She smiled, Good Girls like it when people watch.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the half-naked woman being transferred to the bar and ordered to sleep, which she immediately did. Penny panted and stood, waiting. Love lurched to her at a gesture from Master and stripped her down to her socks in almost no time. With hot little kisses brushing her skin, Kitten let Love take her by the hand and lead her to the still-warm table. She dutifully hopped up onto the edge, pressing her knees together. “What’s... going to happen?” she whispered to Love, trepidation entering her voice.

“Shhh... Sheba, just be a Good Girl and remember how to let go.” With that, she gently but firmly pulled Kitten’s knees apart and sank down to nibble and tease her. 

Kitten leaned back onto her elbows, panting and mewling under Love’s tender attention. 

Master and Mary sat on either side of her, continuing to speak in their unknown language. It sounded ancient and exotic, half poetry and half song. She let the words drift back and forth over her exposed body and smiled vapidly into the air. She moaned into the air, gaze settling on the card players. They had finally stopped playing and were now all watching her. She grinned. Good Girls like being watched. She twitched involuntarily as Love’s unmerciful tongue hit a particularly sensitive spot, and she was back into herself.

She fell onto her back, writhing. She had to say it to come. Some last part of her didn’t want to repeat it, but she couldn’t remember why. Gently, Master undid the clasp on her collar and slipped it off of her neck. He scooped her head up and supported her. “Say it, Kitten,” Master whispered. “Surrender.”

“I obey...” Kitten groaned and squealed as the ecstasy settled into her flesh. “I obey!” 

Master made a gesture, and Mary snaked an arm around Kitten’s midriff, holding her close as her soft lips pressed against Kitten’s throat. A slight, sharp pain followed by unadulterated, sensitive pleasure flowed from her throat. 

“I obey!” she moaned.

Master whispered, “Beg for it,” into Kitten’s ear.

“I obey! Bite me, take me, I obey!”

His lips weren’t as soft as Mary’s, but his bite was the same. Slight pain, intoxicating pleasure.

Still supported by Master’s arm, she put one hand on the back of Love’s head, and one gripped her breast. “I obey!” she now wailed into the echoing, silent room. “I obey!” her mind was melting away. “I obey!” she was nothing but this feeling, now, just the joy of submission. “I obey!” her voice started calming, now, fatigue creeping into it. “I obey,” she moaned, shaking and jerking as if shocked. “I obey,” she groaned. “I obey, I obey, I obey, I obey... I obey... I... obey...” she chanted, drifting into a profoundly satisfying oblivion.


	11. Worse Things

Penny awoke with a languid stretch. The silk sheets against her bare skin felt especially heavenly that morning. The touseled head occupying the pillow next to her was a comfort, and she quietly kissed Love’s cool forehead before slipping out of bed and padding towards the restroom. She paused in front of the full-body mirror. She smiled at the contented expression on her face, letting her hands drift around her skin. Her caresses froze at her neck. 

She craned her neck around to examine her bites, which had stopped bleeding. Mot’s mark, the twin puncture, adorned one side as expected, but Mary’s mark was different. The actual punctures were wider, thinner, and much more numerous. A livid bruise accompanied them on the outside of the oval pattern. At first glance, it looked like a simple hickey, but a second made it look more like the plant of a lipstick-adorned kiss. Penny blushed, what blood she had left flooding her face.

She bathed and applied her makeup like a Good Girl, and then hesitated, calculating how to apply coverup to the bites. A solid knock at the door echoed through the house. She glanced at Love, who only stirred enough to roll over before letting out a sigh and falling back into a deep sleep. Penny threw on a short, red silk robe and rushed to the door before the unknown caller could bang on it again.

She opened the door, looking up for the presumably tall gentleman who must be damaging the paint. She adjusted her sight down to a normal man’s height and then further down to see Mary. Penny glanced past her, to the outside. “I thought your kind couldn’t stand the sun?” Penny noted, with concern.

“Sun hat,” Mary answered, touching the rim of her wide-brimmed hat with a delicate, silk gloved finger. “It is also cloudy.”

The overcast sky let plenty of God’s good light through as far as Penny was concerned. Apparently, the bloodsucker was playing by different rules. “Why are you here?”

“Mot and I talked about you over dinner. I was curious about you. May I indulge that curiosity?”

“I...” Penny wanted to say no. Was she allowed to say no? Why was she worried about what Master would think? “Alright, yes, let me just get dressed.” She started to close the door, but was blocked by a small hand. 

“May I wait inside? The sun is no danger to me today, but it is hardly comfortable.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Always,” Mary responded, matter-of-factly. “I must be invited.”

“Why? What happens if you come in without an invitation?”

“Nothing, really. It is just against the rules. That is... a more complex answer than it sounds, for an immortal. May I come in?”

Penny glanced at Love, who was still visible through the open bedroom door. “Yes, I suppose. Come in.” She moved aside, and Mary drifted past her, footsteps silent despite the heels she was wearing. Penny was again struck at the lilliputian size of the woman.

Penny closed the door and rushed off to the bedroom to get dressed. As she did so, she tried to shake Love awake to let her know that they had company. Love moaned softly and rolled over again, the sheet sliding down enough to reveal that she, too, had a pair of marks on her neck. She showed no more signs of waking, and Penny left her with her contented smile and light snoring. Penny searched the wardrobe and selected a black dress slashed with red ribbons. Even though the skirt ended halfway down her thigh, it was the most conservative thing in the closet. She rolled a pair of silk stockings up her thigh to cover more skin and slipped on a pair of heels.

When she cautiously slipped back into the sitting room, she saw that Mary had made tea and sat waiting patiently. “Tea first,” she interrupted Penny’s question, “Then I shall treat you to breakfast.”

“I shouldn’t leave Love...”

“Who? Oh, Helen. Mot and I took turns enjoying her vigorously last night. She won’t likely be awake until nearly nightfall. I wanted to speak with you alone, anyway. You are a vampire hunter?”

“How did you know? Did Master tell you?”

“Your name, schätzchen. You’re a Dutch, and in Mot’s world, that can only mean you’re one of Walter’s. He’s been lamenting his death for years.”

“Really?” Penny absently poured tea for both of them. Mary waved off the sugar.

“Yes. Walter survived two attacks on Mot’s lair on his own merit, and twice more because Mot enjoyed their dynamic.” Mary took a sip of the tea and put on a tight-lipped smile.

It had been years, but Penny’s tears still welled up. This creature talked so casually about her father’s murder that it almost seemed to insult the event’s importance. “If Master liked father so much, why did he kill him?”

“Mot was in a delicate point of his plan. There was a necromancer encroaching on his territory. The two had been posturing for ten years, setting up the pieces and preparing for a final confrontation. Walter attacked on the very night of that confrontation, so Mot had to kill him to avoid bespoiling his plans.”

“A necromancer? Such things exist?”

The vampire fixed her with a flat look. “There are worse things in Heaven and on Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“More,” Penny corrected.

“What?”

“It’s ‘more things.’ Shakespeare.”

“It was ‘worse things’ when I invented the line in the original German.”

Penny nodded with a shrug. “That does sound pretty German.”

They shared a laugh, and Penny reflected on the bizarre experience. She actually liked the affable little creature. She was more intense than Master, but that intensity made her feel more regal. It added to her charisma. 

They chatted inconsequentially for nearly an hour before the teapot was empty, and Mary gestured for Penny to follow her out into the autumn air. The sun would have been high, but the thick cloud cover allowed even less of it through than before. A biting chill made Penny rush back inside for a coat, though Mary showed no sign of discomfort.

Mary’s retinue was nowhere to be seen, and the pair set out on foot. After several pleasant minutes of walking, Penny broke the silence. “So,” she started, “Did Master make you into a vampire?”

Mary laughed, a high titter that sounded like bells. “No, he did not. Is he giving you that ‘King of All Vampires’ Scheiße?”

“I... don’t think so. I don’t always rem...” Penny looked away, suddenly ashamed and very aware of the bouts of amnesia she had around the vampire. “Remember,” she finished, mumbling.

“Well,” Mary told her, reassuringly, “Mot is not the king of all vampires. He and I and almost a dozen others were the first vampires, but he is lord of none of the others, nor me. At this point, we only attempt to kill one another very rarely.”

“So he can be killed?” Penny seized on the hope, relief flooding her.

“Oh, ja. We can be killed. I may even tell you how,” this last came out teasingly.

Penny digested this statement the whole way. She felt as though she was being drawn into some sort of scheme, but she couldn’t see it even as she felt the walls closing in on her.

They sat down in a dirty little diner, which was squashed between two much taller buildings. Mary only ordered a coffee and ordered a hearty sausage and eggs breakfast for Penny. Apologetically, the little vampire shrugged and announced, “You lost some blood there, schätzchen. The tea will help, but you need some meats.” 

They enjoyed a quiet stretch of silence for a while. Penny finally broke first, “Alright, Mary. You tell me, how do I kill Master?”

“Salt the Earth,” she answered placidly.

“You mean... total destruction?”

“No, Penny, I mean, find his grave dirt and salt it. Or mix in garlic. It has to be a lot, though, enough to desiccate the whole grave. I would burn his bones while I was at it, if I was you.”

“His grave? Wouldn’t that be somewhere in... Europe? Or is he even native to America?”

Mary shook her head, blonde tresses bouncing gamely. “Not his original grave. All of us have long since gathered our soils in boxes that we are not too tethered in place. It also makes it easier to protect them. Find his box, salt the soil, then burn it all.”

“If I do that, he’ll die?” Penny asked, confused.

“No, you will have to kill him. I would suggest killing him first, then destroying his grave before he rises again. He will know what you are up to if you destroy the grave first, and he will show you little mercy, regardless of how fond he is of you.”

Penny looked around, but nobody in the sparsely populated diner seemed to notice the insane conversation that they were having. “Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you... friends?”

“We have interests, fondnesses, and antipathies. They often align and are almost as often opposed. I will be sad if you kill him. I will also be relieved as you will have undoubtedly removed a major obstacle to many future designs. However, he is playing a game with you, and if he were not capable of losing that game, I would deem it unfair. Consider this my nod to something approaching sportsmanship.”

Penny frowned. “Do you think I can win?”

“No, not really. At least you now have a chance.”

Suddenly suspicious, Penny searched the vampire’s placid face. “What was the deal you made with Master? Was it something to do with me?”

To her surprise, Mary laughed again. “We are juggling the fate of the world, and the child wants to know if it’s all about her. No, schätzchen, it’s not about you. I am returning to Europe and aiding in certain recovery efforts. Given the attitudes of the people there, it might come to a small war, and I wanted Mot to ensure that America stayed out of it.”

“What? Why? How?” Penny blurted out.

“The why is not important. The how is... complex. Mot is an insidious creature. He exerts control by a variety of means, and he has very few scruples in doing so. He is more than content to let the world continue alone. Still, if he wants to make something happen, a little bribery, blackmail, or seduction is a simple thing. If he wants America to stay out of foreign adventures, it will stay out.”

“What did you have to give up?” Penny asked, reminded again of Master’s offhand remarks about leading armies in ancient times.

“That is not any of your concern. You should stay focused. You are a vampire hunter, where and how did you train?”

Penny sighed. “My grandparents raised me. They looked after me when father was on his hunting expeditions. They taught me how to fight, how to use a knife, and shoot a gun. They taught me what they could about the weaknesses of the vampire. I’m not sure any of it was right, I don’t know how many vampires father actually killed.” The food was placed in front of her, and she began eating it with gusto.

“Roughly a dozen and a half, by my count,” Mary answered, casually. “He was the most successful vampire hunter I have seen in at least a hundred years.” She mounted another cigarette on her long holder and lit the end with a match. “That may be because we simply don’t make as many as we used to.”

“You don’t? Master said he led armies of the dead...”

“Ja, and do you know how hard it is to feed an army of vampires? The logistics of such a force are a nightmare, trust me. We learned quickly that more conventional forces were better. Vampires we would use as partisans in the wars before time, and now we make them more as spies or assassins. Very rare. Immortality is a carrot to be offered to lead men and women astray, but not given lightly.”

“So... what vampires did father hunt?”

“One of mine, two of Mot’s and a few others. Most several generations down the chain, fairly recent ones. Always during the day. I think he was surprised that Mot didn’t need to sleep as often as the young ones.”

“He doesn’t? How often does Master sleep?”

“I believe his final awakening spanned twenty-five years. Maybe twenty-seven.”

Penny chewed in silence for a while, getting through most of her food in this pause. Mary had been correct; she felt her strength returning as she ate.

“So, what is your plan to kill him?” Mary asked, leaning forward and smiling conspiratorially. 

Taken a bit aback, Penny shrugged. She hesitated to give up her plan to a vampire, but Mary had seemingly helped her so much already. “I was playing along with these games, being his waitress, and I was going to catch him off-guard with some myrrh.”

“Oh! That is pretty good. Where are you getting the myrrh?”

“It was in a drugstore catalog. I ordered a lot of it. I plan to grind it into a powder, put it in my pockets, and throw it in his face until he’s dead.”

“That would be interesting. It is a shame I am leaving before I get a chance to see how that turns out.”

They finished their meals and parted ways. Rather than walking straight home, Penny took a detour to the drugstore where she had ordered the myrrh and found that her order had arrived. Suppressing a pang of fear at how fast time was passing while Master played with her mind, she paid for it and for a box of cartridges for her little gun. As an afterthought, she flirted with the attendant enough that he accepted a nonexistent prescription for some ‘medicinal whiskey’. With all of this in her purse, she set off on the return trip to Love.

The dim sun was past its zenith when she arrived, standing shocked in front of a raging blaze that had been her new home with Love. Firemen were working diligently to contain the flames, but nothing inside would survive.

Stricken, Penny resisted the urge to sink to her knees in despair. One of the onlookers near the water wagon sidled over to her and leaned rakishly on a cane. “Quite the blaze, Kitten.”

“Master? What happened?”

“Apparently, former officer Mucker is still holding a grudge that you prefer the company of Helen to his own. Or maybe it was that his friends are all dead, and someone ruined his career as an especially corrupt officer of the law.”

“Love... is she... Is Love...”

“No, from what I heard, she was carried off in a van. From the description of the driver, it sounded as if the St. Paul crew had procured Mucker’s services, or the other way around. Hardly surprising, Mucker was always friendly with that kind.”

“We have to get her back!” 

“Not I, Kitten. I have things to attend to. You do it.”

“What?” Penny sputtered, horrified. “I don’t...”

“You. Do. It. I’m a busy man. You’re a vampire hunter. Just think of this as hunting vampires before they hatch. Sort of like crushing caterpillars before they can become moths.”

Penny looked at the blaze. “Why won’t you help? They took Love, she’s your responsibility!”

“She’s mine, Kitten. I don’t appreciate the theft, and those involved will be duly punished. But I can’t go chasing after every pretty bauble someone steals from me, or I’d never get anything done. If you get her back, I will duly reward you. In the meantime, I have matters to attend to. If you wish to go, my driver will drop you off near the place where Helen is being kept. Otherwise, I expect you at work, and you’ll be working twice as hard to make up for Helen’s absence. Your choice.”

Mot strode confidently away.


	12. Squashing Caterpillars

Penny exited the vehicle a block away from the hideout, according to directions given by the driver. She wasn’t afraid of being seen by regular people, so she walked along the sidewalk as if nothing was amiss. She passed by the safehouse twice without being noticed, looking out of the corner of her eye as she had been taught to do.

The building had been a home. The red X painted on the door indicated that it was condemned. Still, the muscular man chomping on a lit cigar sitting on the wicker bench on the porch proved that it was occupied. His presence also implied that the occupants didn’t care about violating the law, a trait of organized crime and dirty police.

Her second pass caught faces in the windows. They were unconcerned with riflemen apparently, as they made no effort to hide their heads or draw the curtains. They seemed to be in a tense waiting pattern, as if expecting unpleasant company rather than an attack. Penny smirked to herself. She would be at a disadvantage in numbers and a disadvantage in physical strength next to any one of them. Regardless, she suspected that she would be walking away with her Love tonight.

She approached the sentry. “Um, ’scuse me, I’m kinda lost,” she giggled, as if laughing at herself. “I’m tryna find someone named Mucker?”

“Mucker?” the sentry asked, suddenly tense. “What do you want with him?”

“Well,” she giggled again, this time as if hearing a dirty joke. “He made a payment, and I had to reschedule for tonight. I’m s’posed to make good on his investerment, if you know what I mean.” She waggled her eyebrows and squirmed as if too turned on to stand still.

“Oh, I see. Well, plans changed, Dora. But he might have time for you if I let you in. Maybe show me why it’s worth his time.”

“Oh!” she gasped, feigning awe. “Well, mister, I can show you what he’s missing,” she deftly unbuttoned and opened her blouse, revealing her red lace bra and most of her body. “See? He’ll be very sad if he doesn’t get to put his kisser on this.”

“I’ll bet,” chuckled the sentry. “Tell ya what. You come sit with me, I pass you a fiver, and you give me a hand. I’ll let you in if you can polish me off. Got it?”

“Sure, guy. Just let me know how you like it,” she purred. She thought this was an especially deft cover considering that she’d never actually laid hands on a male groin before.

She sat down next to him on the bench and snuggled into his side. He stank, smelling of sweat and stale smoke, with just a hint of bootleg whiskey. Without preamble, she opened the buckle on his belt and slipped her hand into his pants. Revulsion shuddered through her as she gripped the stiffening cock that she’d discovered at fingertip. She knew the principle, of course. Penny store romance novels she’d bought as a rebellious teen had taught her the basics. It wasn’t until the sentry growled in frustration that she thought she might be doing something incorrectly.

“Grip it harder, Dora. That’s it. Now squeeze when you pull, ah! Yeah, that’s it. You got strong hands, probably good career path for you. Spit on it, you’re getting me raw!”

Startled at the last part, Penny withdrew her hand. He looked at her expectantly, so she licked her palm. It tasted salty, as if he’d been sweating on her. She drove it back down into his pants and suddenly found it easier to slide over his skin. He grunted appreciation, and the moment continued.

She took her eyes off his face for a bit and looked at the passers-by. A very few seemed to notice what they were doing and gave the sentry grins of congratulations. Penny blushed.

“You blush?” the sentry gasped, “I didn’t know hookers could still blush!”

She responded by pinching his balls as she fished his prick into the night air. “That’s not all we can do!” she grinned and redoubled her efforts. Good girls like being watched, and that gathering crowd of onlookers was just the boost she needed. When he started to pant under her focused assault, she dropped her head down into his lap, heedless of their onlookers. She only had to bob a few times on his engorged prick before he filled her mouth with bitter spunk. She leaned over and spat out the foul mouthful before roughly stuffing him back into his pants.

She sat up, swinging her leg around him so she could straddle his hips. She looked back with venom at the crowd, and they immediately dispersed, minding their own business. She kissed the sentry on the mouth, pushing her tongue past his teeth. He didn’t resist, instead putting his hands on her hips and forcing her into a grinding motion. He didn’t notice when she slipped her apache revolver out of her pocket and flipped out the switchblade. He tried screaming when she neatly severed the femoral artery in his leg. Her mouth remained tightly pressed against his own. So muffled, he died in near silence after only a few seconds, and she climbed off of him. She smoothed out her dress and looked at her handiwork. He was pale, but the dark stain beneath the wicker bench wouldn’t be identifiable without close inspection until the morning. One way or another, it was going to be over by then anyway.

She checked to make sure that blood hadn’t gotten on her skirt and then tried the knob. It was unlocked, so she slipped in. Two radios were blaring in separate rooms. One was re-running a baseball game, and the other was playing music. The chaotic sound swirled around her, and she felt an odd yet familiar sensation of being in the present settle into her.

Kitten smiled. She padded into a small kitchen, where two men were discussing what to do about a shopkeeper who had been late with his payments. “Excuse me,” she interrupted, biting her lip. “You got some extra hooch for a tomato, or ya gonna keep flappin’ your gums?” She giggled at their shocked response and slid over to stand between them, helping herself to a shot. “I’m just razzin, boys.” She knocked back a drink and slammed the glass on the counter.

“You okay in there?” a voice called, and the accompanying head poked around the doorframe, revolver in hand.

“We’re jake! The entertainment has arrived! Wait your turn and you might learn something!” she laughed, pouring herself another glass and slamming it back down. She nudged one of the men, and they followed suit, slamming glasses onto the counter next to hers. She whooped and swayed her hips. The vigilant stranger shook his head in annoyance and left. She could just make out in the next room his voice explaining that the slamming was not gunshots. A smile settled on her cherry red lips.

They had another round, and the men didn’t notice that she hadn’t filled her glass this time. Two was loosey, three was goosey, and she had work to do. They slammed the glasses down, and the men immediately turned to her. Their hands ran over her body as she swayed, giggling and teasing. She turned to one, holding him tight and nipping at his ear while the other lifted her skirt from behind. When she didn’t object, the men shared toothy grins, and their hands got even bolder. She let herself enjoy it for a bit longer before breaking off with a giggle. She flipped her skirt up to give them both a preview this time and ran around the cutting table. They jeered and laughed as they chased her, eventually cornering her against the counter. The bolder of the two lifted her up and pushed himself between her knees, fumbling with his belt. She wrapped her legs and left arm around him, moaning lewd promises into his ear. His impatient partner took up a position behind him, willing to wait his turn without much fuss.

Her right hand fished out her gun again and put a bullet between the waiting man’s eyes. Before he’d even hit the ground, she switched the blade out and rammed it into the base of the other man’s skull. Neither made a sound as they slumped into the ground, but through the wall behind her, she heard a voice, “Dammit, Heder, keep that up, and the bim’s gonna break all our glasses!”

“Sorry, sheik,” Kitten called back in a breathy voice. “Won’t happen again!”

She reloaded her spent chamber and stowed her weapon again. She reflected briefly as she followed the sounds of the baseball announcer. These men were easy. This was so easy because she was a Good Girl. The thought made her smile. She was a Good Girl, and they all wanted her; she was in charge, and she had Master to thank. She giggled again, this time thinking about how she should thank Master. She would definitely need to find a little release when this was over.

Kitten padded into a living room, with mismatched couches and chairs gathered around a radio. Six men were cheering on their teams; too many at once. She hung back until one of them noticed her. With a wink and a smile, she flipped the front of her skirt up and cocked an eyebrow. He cut a glance at his friends and then jerked his head to a door. She beat him there and had correctly guessed that it was a restroom. He closed the door with a bang and was immediately on her, pushing her into the shower without preamble and smashing his lips against hers. His stubble scratched her face as his blunt fingers worried at the buttons on her blouse. She was just about to reach into her pocket when he roughly flipped her around, pushing her face into the wall and lifting her skirt. Some part of her wanted to go through with this and finish him after. The other part wanted her to save herself for Master.

The second part won, and she wriggled as he began rubbing himself against her. She felt him slide between her thighs as he looped his fingers into the waistband of her panties to draw them down. In a flash, her weapon was out, and she’d flicked it between her legs with precision, splitting the head of his uncircumcised cock neatly in half. He stumbled away, unsure what had just happened as he gaped at the mangled member. He looked at her in horror as she wheeled around and crashed the brass knuckles into his cheekbone, sending him careening into the mirror. Kitten slipped out of the restroom, straightening her clothing and rebuttoning her blouse. One of the baseball fans gave her a knowing smile and turned back to the radio.

She started making eyes at another of them but was interrupted by a knock at the front door. Kitten looked expectantly at the men, but none of them even seemed to notice. Unsure about her next step, she cracked open the door to peek out.

A boy and a girl stood on the porch. They were around nine or ten years old, in shabby clothing, and ghostly pale. Their eyes were also black pits that drew in the light and threatened to send Kitten into a stupor. She averted her eyes.

“Hey, we’re real hungry out here,” the boy noted. His tone was dispassionate and distant, almost like he’d simply memorized a script and didn’t quite understand it. “Will you please let us in so we can have a little food?”

Kitten almost opened the door and stopped herself. “You’re... you’re vampires!” she hissed, shaking herself fully awake.

The boy broke out of his monotone and grinned, revealing a pair of pearly white fangs. “Yeah? What kind of thing did you think would come with you pouring dinner all over the porch?” The girl smirked as well, glancing at the deceased sentry. “Let us in. We’ll help you clean this place out.” His accent now sounded British and too mature for his age. “I promise, we’d never cross Mot.”

“Why don’t you just lick it up from the porch?”

The boy scoffed. “Why don’t ya’ eat yer next sausage straight off the ground, ya’ twat?”

“Dead blood’s no good,” the girl piped up. “Besides, we’ll help you. There’s too many for just one human to take on. Please?”

Penny chewed her lip. There was an awful lot of risk, and she was a vampire hunter. She was pretty sure that precluded her from feeding people to vampires. On the other hand, they were absolutely correct. She would not win this without them. She stood to the side and opened the door wide. “Come inside, please?”

The two didn’t hesitate. They raced inside with shocking speed and split up. Penny could see the boy lunge at the baseball fans. The first didn’t see him as he descended from his pounce, fingers curled like claws. He gripped the gangster by the shoulders and tore, opening a wound so profound that he didn’t have time to scream before he was quite clearly dead. The boy lashed out with both hands in different directions, blinding two of his victims with viscera before leaping again. This time he buried his fingers up to the knuckles in a man’s chest cavity. He hauled his victim apart, opening his ribcage like a liquor cabinet.

Penny didn’t wait to see him finish, instead rushing down the hallway to the room where the men had been playing music. The first thing she saw was a man lying in a pool of blood, the bottom half of his face a ruined cavity. Another, further in, had what appeared to be the first man’s gore-covered jawbone buried in his forehead. In the corner, a young man of perhaps twenty held a revolver to his own temple with a terror-stricken face. He mechanically pulled the trigger over and over again, bring the hammer down on empty chamber after empty chamber in a steady rhythm. His eyes were locked on something behind the card table they’d been sitting around. Penny crept up to the table and peered over it. The girl was there, lips locked onto a man’s neck. Odd bruises were appearing on his face as the valves of his veins and arteries were sucked backward. In time to her great, sucking gulps, his skin even shrunk slightly but visibly. Penny couldn’t tell if the horror-stricken look frozen on his face still indicated life or if he’d already died.

The girl’s skin was not right, either. It swelled and writhed on her arms and face as she drank, and Penny could have sworn that her arms were getting longer as she held her victim.

Penny backed out of the room and whirled on the sound of a doorknob turning. She immediately drew her pistol out of her pocket and faced the door at the end of the hall. A man cautiously slid into view, gun ready. Penny fired first, putting a hole in his throat. He gurgled and fired two wild shots before stumbling back through the door he’d just exited. Penny heard a series of thumps and realized that he had come from a cellar.

She raced over to the door and looked down, seeing the man’s body at the foot of a rickety wooden staircase. His head was bent at an odd angle, and a pool of blood was widening around his body. Penny let the air leave her in a rush. She couldn’t do this with doubts and worries. She needed to be Kitten again. She closed her eyes and let the music from the other room flow into her again, taking away her anxiety and concern. Kitten opened her eyes, ready to scratch.

She navigated the staircase, keeping her feet on the outer edges to avoid creaking. At the bottom, the men stepped into the light all around her. Four of them had revolvers, one had a shotgun, and another had a grease gun. Kitten raised her hands with a shy smile, pistol and all. “Which of you palookas wants to search me?” she asked, wagging her hips and making her skirt bounce. They exchanged grins, and a man stepped up behind her. As his hands explored her hips and sides, she noted, “You know, sheik, you guys should have bushwhacked me on the stairs. You should also have gone for my gun first.” She thumbed the button, and the switchblade flicked out, shattering the bulb and plunging the room into darkness. Kitten didn’t hesitate. She dropped to the ground and crawled swift as a snake on her elbows to one side.

The flashes of gunfire and the thunder echoing off the walls in every direction made for a chaotic scene, most of the damage being done by the grease gun. The man who had been searching her got the worst of it from every angle, but bullets flew in every direction from panicked gangsters. Kitten slithered around behind the gunner and silently stood. She put a shot in the back of his skull and dropped again while more fire scattered around. While they fired wildly into the dark, she stalked the fallen by the sound of their groans and finished them, one by one.

At last, the thunder stopped again. In the deafening silence, she could hear their breathing. With a sly grin, she slithered again.

“What the hell just happened?”

“I don’t know. I think we just shot each other.”

“Think we got her?”

“Yeah, we had to have.”

Rising again, she put her revolver alongside one man’s ear.

“Think she was the only one? There was a lot of screaming upstairs.”

“I don’t know, I don’t want to go up an-” Kitten’s gun barked, aimed over one man’s shoulder at the far gangster’s whisper. She only clipped her target, but that was enough, as he responded by unloading six shots of a freshly reloaded gun into his friend. She aimed at the muzzle flash and fired three more times, and the final two hit the floor at nearly the same time.

Reloading again, she searched the men and found a lighter. By that light, Kitten searched the basement until she found a wooden door. When she opened it, she was shocked to see Love sitting at a card table with two of her kidnappers. Love grinned at her and waved. “Heya!” she chirped, with a wink.

“Love?!” Kitten asked, shocked. “What... I expected you to be...”

“Tied up?” she laughed, laying her cards onto the table. “My lovely girl, I’m not a damsel in distress type unless you got the right kind of firm hand.”

“Aren’t they holding you here?”

“They are, kinda. I dosed Mucker and Thumb here with some zumbi powder. I was hoping one of theirs would check on us so I could get them, too, and I’d get the three of them to clear a path out. Looks like you’ve got it covered, though.”

“I killed... All of them.”

“Really? That’s the berries, hon.”

Penny sobbed, sinking to her knees. “I killed so many people, and I let vampires into the house.” She started to cry, her mascara running down her cheeks.

“Hey, hey,” Love shushed, rushing around the table to hold Penny. “It’s alright. These mooks weren’t exactly upstanders.”

“I was just so scared you were hurt!”

“I know,” Love cooed. “You say you let vampires in? Who?”

“I didn’t ask their names... Boy and a girl.”

“Oh, okay, let’s go introduce ourselves.” She turned to Mucker and pouted. “Hey, Mucky? Would you grab an ax and start hacking up any corpses you find up there? Thank you, doll.”

The former officer lurched to his feet and shambled off to the stairs, heedless of the dead and the blood in the dark.

Love helped Penny to her feet and led her delicately through the dark and up the stairs. They passed the room with the music still playing, though nothing inside stirred. Penny even more pointedly avoided looking in the kitchen. When they entered the living room, a fully grown man was dressing in a dead man’s clothes. A nude woman was sitting on the lap of the young man who had been attempting suicide and staring deeply into his eyes.

“Darling, are you going to eat the lad?” the man asked, buttoning his bloody, stolen shirt.

“No, he’s pretty. I think I’ll keep him,” she chuckled. Then, to her victim, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes...” he breathed.

“Good boy,” the vampire cooed, and he smiled. A chill went up Penny’s spine. She tried not to feel jealous of the young man, but she knew how he felt at that moment. The vampire continued to whisper at him.

“They’ll be busy at that for a while. She does enjoy playing with her food.” The stranger turned to Penny and grinned, showing off a pair of long white fangs.

“Are you the... children?” Penny asked, confused.

The man laughed. “That’s the Curse of Mot. We awaken from our graves as children, and it takes blood to finish. Most of the time, we can’t get enough before we have to return. It’s a constant imperative if we want to enjoy our eternity. Very frustrating.” He sighed and then fixed her with his black-eyed gaze. “We didn’t introduce ourselves. I’m Septimus Septimula, and she’s Alzbet.”

Alzbet didn’t take her attention off the helpless man and spoke as if addressing him, “I prefer Beth, but you can call me ma’am. Understand?”

“Yes... ma’am.”

“Good boy.”

“Well, I’m going out. I’ve got about a month before I need another dirt nap, and I’m going to enjoy it.” He paused halfway to the door. “You ladies coming? Alzbet likes an audience, but it’s rare to find one appreciative of her performance.”

Penny looked from him to the vampiress as she slowly but expertly worked the enthralled man’s belt. The smile on her face was less than wholesome. “I think we’ll go with you. I need to get away from this... smell.”

Septimus, Penny, and Love left together. Just before they opened the front door, a dull thunking sound could be heard as Mucker followed his final order.

As they walked, Penny tried and failed to avoid thinking about the faces of the dead. She felt a sickening feeling in her gut. Love seemed to sense her mood and kissed her cheek and ear, whispering comforting words to her. When that didn’t work, she addressed Septimus. “So what are you doing in town? You’re not the Master’s usual servants...”

“No, Love, we came to visit our esteemed patriarch because the homeland is so very depressing right now. Even in victory, the British remain dour as ever. Also, his pet dwarf is acting up, and I was hoping to convince him to send a stern letter.”

The strangeness of the statement shook Penny out of her spiral of self-pity. “Dwarf? What?”

“Aye. A right evil little troll named Abhartach. Mot turned him into a bloodsucker while the two were exchanging recipes like old spinsters. He made me in Londinium and a giant Pict in Scotland to keep the little bastard in check, but he’s a dangerous thing. London’s filled with hedonistic frenzy, so my own issue are too distracted to organize, and Glasgow is so incredibly violent that they’ve formed an actual vampire hunting gang that gets lost in all the noise. Sawney has his creepy mittens full. So Abhartach has been making moves to take over while we’re distracted. Only one that monster will listen to is Mot.”

“Why don’t you just kill him?” Penny asked, confused.

“Oh, I try. There are all these rules, you see, how we’re to behave with each other. Formal declarations and respecting privacy, territory, and such.” He dragged on his cigarette and flicked the butt away. “It’s awful, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Penny returned a kiss from Love and separated, enjoying the cool night air on her skin. They held hands instead. She asked, “What IS the alternative?”

He laughed bitterly, eyeing a handsome young man who was stumbling drunkenly towards them down the dark street. “That’s the real joke. Nothing. There is no alternative. I could invade all the homes I want, I could directly assault the little shitgoblin, I could pass by an upturned broom without counting each bristle. But that would be violating Mot’s preferences, or some treaty he made with the other horerczy like himself, and they and their more loyal servants would crash down on me with the fury of a thousand demons. It’s not even worth the attempt to do it without him finding out. I’ve seen the results of that, and it looks like Gainsthorpe. I do not want that. Excuse me, I have a little buggery to accomplish.” He quickened his pace, seemingly moving faster than his stride would imply.

As he had a brief conversation with the man, Love and Penny spoke in quiet tones. “Do you think he’s dangerous?” Penny asked, never taking her eyes off the vampire.

“Of course he’s dangerous,” Love responded with a laugh. “He’s a predator, and we’re food. Vampires are all political creatures, with backstabbing and plans that can take a hundred years to fruit. He won’t touch us, though. We’re Master’s.” She touched her own collar and Penny’s, for emphasis.

Penny put a hand to her throat, feeling the warm, soft leather with some trepidation. She hadn’t realized that she’d put that on. “Can we trust him?”

“He’s fed. For a vampire, that’s the same thing as trustworthy, at least temporarily.”

They watched as the vampire’s conversation ended, and the two men disappeared into an alleyway.

“Seems like he’s still hungry,” Penny noted, with a tinge of pity for the man.

“I get the feeling this is more of a fun feeding than a hungry feeding. Let’s assume he’ll catch up.”

The two women moved on, still holding hands. Occasionally, when Penny’s thoughts turned back to the men she’d killed that night, Love would distract her with kisses and caresses. The tactic worked, and Penny was unable to focus on her own regrets. The closest she had gotten resulted in Love brazenly pinning her against the outside of a house and aggressively kissing her, hand slipping deftly beneath her skirt to send shivers up and down her spine.

“You slags about ready to move on?” Septimus approached them, still tucking in his new shirt. He was wearing the clean clothes of the drunk he’d accosted. “I need someone to show me a local nightspot. Someplace... Bee’s knees? Did I use that right?”

“Naw,” Love laughed, using the same voice as she gave the patrons of Mot’s establishment. “But that’s okay. The accent makes the mistakes sound exotic.”

“Did you kill that man?” Penny asked, somberly.

“No,” Septimus answered, pulling a comb out of his new pocket as if it was a surprise. He started smoothing his hair. “I just made him the sort of person who slaps pork in an alleyway with a random man he met on the street.” He touched his scalp lightly to test his combing and put the object away. “I’m very good at what I do.”

They chatted for a bit longer until they passed a hotel. “This is a good one,” Love noted. “Lots of dancing and stuff. I know it’s only Tuesday, but every Saturday they end with an orgy. That seems to be about your jazz...”

“You have no idea,” he chuckled darkly. “And Orgy Day is the day I walk in, no exceptions. You birds have a good night.” He started to enter the hotel. He turned and called out near the entrance, “You be careful with Mot, Penny Dutch. He’s a monster, and he’ll make you love him. You’ll beg for it.” With that, he was gone.

Penny nodded internally. Love was proof positive that the vampire was telling the truth. As much as it pained her to admit, Love was subservient to the vampire. Perhaps when she killed him, her lover would be free. They returned to the smoldering ruins of their home. It had been allowed to completely burn, with the firefighters merely preventing the spread of the flames. Penny was surprised to see Mot’s driver parked by the curb, waiting for them.

They slipped into the backseat at Love’s direction, and the driver silently pulled away. Penny knew after the first few turns that they were headed for Master’s. She stared out the window, trying not to focus on what she’d done. She didn’t even notice Love drawing close before she felt lips on her neck and a hand sliding into her panties. Penny moaned, craning her neck and spreading her legs.

“My hero,” Love said in a husky voice. “I think that deserves one good turn, don’t you think?”

“Ah! But he’s...”

“Shhh... Good Girls like being watched, Kitten.”

“Ahhh...” Kitten groaned, slumping into the tender kisses. “Yes, Love.”

“Tell the driver how much you appreciate the ride.”

“I -Ah! Thank you for the ride!” She squirmed as Love’s fingers expertly sent spasms through her whole body. The driver glancing back at them was enough to cause her to whimper with need.

“You don’t have to say it, Kitten,” Love whispered into her ear. “You can just think it, long as you believe it.”

Obediently, Kitten did as she was told. She thought, ‘I obey’ in her head, over and over. In very short order, she was having a screaming orgasm in the backseat of the swiftly moving car, during which she said it out loud anyway. When they had arrived, she was a disheveled mess, and a wet stain had been left on her seat.

They slipped into the basement, where Master was watching a dancer on the stage with a smirk. The expression didn’t change when he turned to her. He made a show of looking at Penny from her messy hair to her slightly trembling knees and laughed. “Wasted no time rewarding your white knight, Helen? Good girl.” Love grinned and chewed her lip, pinching Penny’s backside. “I replaced your things. Go upstairs and get dressed for work.”

They did as they were told, and Penny was startled to find that the upper floors were furnished almost precisely the same as their destroyed home. In a master bedroom, wardrobes identical to theirs were set up, filled with the same clothing. Penny’s breath caught; a scratch left by a careless hanger stood out on the left side where it had scored the dark-stained wood. “Did Mucker even burn the house? Or was it Master?” Penny asked Love, hesitantly.

“Hm? It was Mucker,” Love answered, with a shrug. “Master warned me he was going to do it, though, so he had workers move all our stuff. Why?”

“I killed all those people... he made me kill all those people...”

“That again? Don’t worry about those guys. They’re nothing. Nobody will miss a pack of mooks in St. Paul. Nobody.”

Penny’s face clouded again, but this time Love was there. Without preamble, Love threw her onto the bed and started stripping her down. “We got a little time, let’s have a quickie before work. You owe me for the ride here.”


End file.
